On Thursday 29 October, I was at Plateforme 10 in Lausanne for “A day full of Resources” (Une journée pleine de Ressources), organised by VivaVaud. We had already taken part last year, with great talks and rich conversations, so this new edition was not to be missed. We were invited as part of the Sustainable Economy Support Fund (Fonds de soutien à l'Économie durable), whose sustainability support mandates fund part of the consulting for our B Corp certification.
Resources… and people
The theme of the day: resources. How they are managed, what they mean, how scarce they are, and the risks that come with them.
To me, people should not be called resources (article in French). And this day made me think it may go deeper than that: perhaps we should treat every resource the way we treat people. With their complexity, their scarcity, their potential, and the care they require.
A morning of talks
After a welcome from Guillaume de Buren, head of the cantonal Office for Sustainability and Climate (OCDC), and news from the Fund, the morning moved through several talks:
- Clarisse Merlet, founder of FaBRICK, a start-up that creates a design material from textile waste, told the entrepreneurial story of a circular product that nobody expected or understood. It was impressive to see her drive and determination to see the project through, and how generously she shared what she had learned. You could feel she enjoyed telling her story.
- Cyril Chelle Michoud, from ETH Zurich, talked about mineral resources and the challenges of a transition that inevitably involves degrowth, with the figures to prove it.
- Nathalie Brodard led a discussion about a resource unlike any other: people.
- The compagnie second degré wrapped up the morning with humour. We laughed a lot.
Workshop: Business Resilience Game
In the afternoon, out of the four workshops on offer, I chose the Business Resilience Game. This board game, designed by Circulab and facilitated by Julien Zory (Orbisfy), helps companies anticipate crises, test their agility and align their teams. A team of five players grows a business, fictional or real, while facing “stress tests”: shortages and climate, geopolitical or social shocks.
The organisation's resilience is built through its investment areas:
- modularity;
- cohesion;
- redundancy;
- diversity;
- autonomy.
Through concrete examples, the game makes you realise how important it is to invest in resilience.
Conversations beyond our industry
As always, the encounters were interesting and rewarding. With prospects, of course, but above all with people from other industries asking the same questions we are: about value, about meaning, about the crises ahead, and about AI, which is shaking up our sector on the front line.
I came away with the feeling that others are watching what is happening in services and digital, as the AI wave hits, to try to anticipate what lies ahead for their own professions.
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