Defending the Common Good: A Call for Companies to Act Beyond Profit-driven Objectives.

When we talk about the common good, the question quickly arises of what it encompasses. To this question, Mélanie Tisserand-Berger, president of the Center for Young Leaders (CJD) which brings together 6,000 French VSEs and SMEs, offers a first element of response: “the company does not decide on the common good but it implements it” , believes this accountant. That, she said, is up to the community to decide. But faced with the slowness of the State, particularly in terms of the environment, some prefer to take the lead. This is the case of Pierre Fabre Laboratories, a company controlled by a public utility foundation and its employees, which finances humanitarian actions in Africa and South-East Asia with its dividends. Similarly, the status of company with a mission, introduced by the Pacte law, makes it possible to go beyond the simple objective of creating value. And to act for a wider set of stakeholders, which includes nature and the planet.

This is the objective of the Green Impact Index developed since 2021 by Pierre Fabre Laboratories and Afnor, an association setting standards serving the general interest and sustainable development. “This index includes 20 criteria that determine the social and environmental impact of our products, explains its CEO, Eric Ducournau. It has led us to adapt 80% of our formulas over the past three years.” This Yuka-style tool, named after the famous food rating app, has now been adopted by 200 companies that intend to make their results transparent to consumers. A means of forcing oneself to act for the common good.

Defending the common good at the risk of an overabundance of norms

“The common good is also this space in which we live with the objective of reducing our impacts, or even of becoming regenerative businesses of the living”, affirms the president of the CJD. But how to integrate these parameters when shareholder greed continues to increase? “There was a time when they were much less greedy, recalls Belgian economist Mathias Dewatripont, from the Free University of Brussels. It really got out of hand and things have to be rebalanced”. Especially in favor of consumers who are increasingly concerned about the durability of what they buy. One of the ways would be to have more employees on the boards of directors. Or to welcome great patrons, like Bill Gates who would undoubtedly have a lot to say if he sat on the board of multinational pharmaceutical companies.

But isn’t this obligation to defend the common good likely to be added to the overabundance of standards that sometimes asphyxiate companies? Mélanie Tisserand-Berger does not think so. “We did not wait for the text on value sharing to do so, she said while welcoming this co-constructed agreement between employers and unions. And we would like it to go further on environmental issues”. Because these advances contribute, according to her, to the search for meaning of employees and make it possible to retain them. “The company acts on a market, that of employment, adds Eric Ducournau. It is necessary to make competitive offers with a purpose and humanitarian missions, for example, to add the collective”.

Therefore, are profits incompatible with the notion of the common good? “Without value creation, there is no investment, recalls the CEO of Pierre Fabre. And without investment, there is no progress, including social and environmental”. This message echoes the untimely speech, a few moments earlier in the room, of the Extinction Rébellion collective opposed to capitalism. Thus, this creation of value does not prevent the laboratory from acting to respect the Paris Agreements thanks to a dozen indicators that serve as a compass in addition to financial objectives. And Mélanie Tisserand-Berger to plead for a new accounting which would pass on all the CSR data. In order to better contribute to the common good.