PHENIX A Circular Economy Business Model Case

The aim of the R2π project is to find and analyze sustainable business models for circular economy in a variety of industrial sectors. Then, it aims to develop propositions that will support such business models. This report develops the case of Phenix, a French company in the food sector, illustrative of a successful circular business model. Phenix was created in 2014 by two entrepreneurs, Jean Moreau and Baptiste Corval and went through a steady growth, now having 18 regional offices in France and 3 international ones in Copenhagen, Lisbon and Madrid. The company’s global mission is to “unleash the potential of waste”. With an initial focus on food-waste, Phenix has set up a digital platform that works as an intermediary connecting waste “suppliers” (mainly retailers) and waste receivers (mostly charities). Through this service, Phenix prevents food close to expiration date from being wasted, and turns such waste into food donations. Beyond its matchmaking platform, Phenix also provides partners with a secured supply chain. Phenix achieves ‘triple bottom line’ value creation, by helping retailers to reduce the cost of food waste (economic benefit), enabling charities to get free access to food donations (social benefit), and helping society to reduce the overall amount of food waste produced in our economic system (environmental & circular economy benefit). It is, therefore, an example of a “mission-driven platform”, built on a hybrid model that combines business, social and environmental value creation. Presently, Phenix works with more than a thousand supermarket clients, has 100 full-time employees and helps to distribute over 40 000 meals per day. Phenix business model is circular by design. The organization offers a service to secure the recovery of unsold food products. Doing so, it organizes a circular sourcing for charities and helps retailers managing their products end-of-life. Because Phenix acts as a service provider, it does not generate waste but rather helps other organizations reduce their own. As a multisided platform, Phenix has developed a distinct pricing scheme to address each side of the platform. Phenix revenue model is based on monetizing the supply-side of the platform, through a fixed commission on the waste-management gains achieved by distributors using the platform. On the other side of the platform (demand side), Phenix organizes free access to food for social charities, thus achieving a social benefit and facilitating the growth of the platform. The French legal framework offered a favorable context for the development of a profitable business model for Phenix. As part of this regulatory framework, an existing tax incentive introduced in 1981 under the “Coluche law” providing for a 60% tax deduction for food retailers and producers who donate foodstuffs instead of generating waste. Through its secured supply chain, Phenix organizes traceability, secures savings for retailers and can charge a commission on the total savings on waste management, making the business model viable. As a fast growing and profitable start-up, the company is currently exploring different opportunities for geographical diversification in other European and non-European countries. The company is also currently engaged in processes of horizontal diversification to expand its services to new types of waste, and explores how to improve its current offer through digital solutions. While the company strategic position appears quite robust, few points of attention need to be considered: the business model remains dependent on favorable regulations, it remains labor intensive and new market acquisitions require large investments. Yet, new technology such as big data or IoT can radically improve the model’s cost-efficiency. Lobbying skills and network effects can protect the regulatory framework and diversification strategy to other resources (non-food wastes) and new skills (consulting) can strengthen the business model. Beyond the strategic analysis of the company, this case study has significant implications for public regulators. It first highlights the central role of public regulation in the innovation process. And it illustrates the hypothesis of Porter and Van der Linde, according to which properly crafted environmental regulations not only help to reduce environmental externalities, but they can also lead to profits for innovative companies (Porter & Linde, 1995). Overall our results points toward a mix between a regulatory framework and private dynamics of innovation to create successful circular business model. On the innovation side, the case shows how mission-driven platforms can reconfigure stakeholder relations in a given business ecosystem and improve operational efficiency of these relations in order to decrease waste and increase re-useThis project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 73037

Food Coop (2016) - Tom Boothe

This issue of M@n@gement’s Unplugged – Voices presents four essays on organizations that are not conventional in relation to their governance, their economic model and their consumer relations. Although they are not new to the economic landscape, “alternative organizations” have a growing presence in the academic management literature (e.g., Dorion, 2017; Meyer & Hudon, 2017; Parker, 2017; Parker & Parker, 2017). The recent financial and economic crises and environmental crises such as climate change and loss of biodiversity have helped to make these organizations more visible (Parker, Cheney, Fournier & Land, 2014). In this context, there has been renewed interest in the original model of the Park Slope Food Coop (PSFC) in New York, with numerous projects replicating this participatory supermarket model in Western Europe and North America. The PSFC is an alternative organization in that it is a cooperative and is therefore member-owned, member-controlled and benefiting its members (Mamouni Limnios, Mazzarol, Soutar & Siddique, 2018). It was created in 1973 in the USA, around the time of the counterculture (that is, the peace movement, anti-corporate movement, hippies, etc.) that was happening then (Jochnowitz, 2001)

Contest and Consent : free labour in alternative organizations : the cas of a new-wave food coop

Cette thèse explore la question du travail dans les organisations alternatives et propose de répondre à la problématique suivante : « comment peut s’organiser le travail dans des organisations alternatives en dehors d’une logique capitaliste ? Une telle organisation peut-elle permettre de s’émanciper des formes d’oppression au travail ? » Le manuscrit s’inscrit dans les perspectives émergentes sur les organisations alternatives qui proposent un nouveau projet d’émancipation pour les études critiques en gestion. Nous proposons une approche anti-essentialiste de ces organisations et insistons sur l’enjeu théorique des imaginaires pour accompagner l’émergence des alternatives. Toutefois, nous soulignons l’absence de recherche sur le travail dans ces organisations. Nous mobilisons ici la Labour Process Theory qui a particulièrement étudié la question de l’aliénation au travail en expliquant le contrôle du travail par des dispositifs coercitifs et une fabrique du consentement. Classiquement centrées sur les conflits sociaux dans les usines, nous suivons de récentes perspectives qui appliquent la LPT à de nouvelles organisations. Nous présentons ensuite notre méthode ethnographique de trois ans au sein de la Louve, le premier supermarché coopératif et participatif de France. Les résultats montrent que le travail à la Louve se présente comme la construction permanente d’un équilibre entre contestation et consentement. Les membres de la coopérative s’organisent pour porter un projet contestataire vis-à-vis des acteurs traditionnels de la grande distribution. Un imaginaire commun est activement fabriqué, régulé et stabilisé pour obtenir le consentement des membres au contrôle de leur travail volontaire. Cependant, cette organisation du travail maintient des rapports de pouvoir au sein de la coopérative en séparant les coopérateurs qui contrôlent la politique alimentaire de l’organisation de ceux qui ne font que la mettre en œuvre.This thesis explores the issue of labour in alternative organizations to understand “how labour can be organized outside the logic of capitalism? Could it be a source of emancipation?” This research is anchored in perspectives on alternative organizations which emergence proposes a new emancipatory project for critical management studies. We follow an anti-essentialist view of alternative organizations and insist on the theoretical significance of conceptualizing imaginaries to develop those organiza tions. However, we note the lack of research on labour in those alternative structures. To bridge this gap, we draw on Labour Process Theory which particularly explore alienation at work. It explains labour control as the combination of coercive apparatuses and the manufacture of workers’ consent. While originally focused on factory life, we follow recent research on labour process in new contemporary forms of organizations. We then present our ethnographic fieldwork of three years in la Louve, the first new wave food coop in France. Our results show that labour at la Louve is the permanent equilibrium between contestation and consent. Members organize and unite to enact a rejection of mainstream food retailers. A common imaginary is actively manufactured, regulated and stabilized to secure members’ consent to the control of their workforce. This work organization is however not neutral but sustain power relations within the coop. It divides members between those in control of the food policy and those only enforcing this policy through deskilled manual work

Documenting Supermarkets: Contemporary Efforts To Support Intellectually Disturbing OrganizationsFood Coop (2016) -Tom Boothe Unplugged -Voices

International audienc

Contester et Consentir : la mise au travail des membres d’une organisation alternative : le cas d’un supermarché coopératif et participatif

This thesis explores the issue of labour in alternative organizations to understand “how labour can be organized outside the logic of capitalism? Could it be a source of emancipation?” This research is anchored in perspectives on alternative organizations which emergence proposes a new emancipatory project for critical management studies. We follow an anti-essentialist view of alternative organizations and insist on the theoretical significance of conceptualizing imaginaries to develop those organiza tions. However, we note the lack of research on labour in those alternative structures. To bridge this gap, we draw on Labour Process Theory which particularly explore alienation at work. It explains labour control as the combination of coercive apparatuses and the manufacture of workers’ consent. While originally focused on factory life, we follow recent research on labour process in new contemporary forms of organizations. We then present our ethnographic fieldwork of three years in la Louve, the first new wave food coop in France. Our results show that labour at la Louve is the permanent equilibrium between contestation and consent. Members organize and unite to enact a rejection of mainstream food retailers. A common imaginary is actively manufactured, regulated and stabilized to secure members’ consent to the control of their workforce. This work organization is however not neutral but sustain power relations within the coop. It divides members between those in control of the food policy and those only enforcing this policy through deskilled manual work.Cette thèse explore la question du travail dans les organisations alternatives et propose de répondre à la problématique suivante : « comment peut s’organiser le travail dans des organisations alternatives en dehors d’une logique capitaliste ? Une telle organisation peut-elle permettre de s’émanciper des formes d’oppression au travail ? » Le manuscrit s’inscrit dans les perspectives émergentes sur les organisations alternatives qui proposent un nouveau projet d’émancipation pour les études critiques en gestion. Nous proposons une approche anti-essentialiste de ces organisations et insistons sur l’enjeu théorique des imaginaires pour accompagner l’émergence des alternatives. Toutefois, nous soulignons l’absence de recherche sur le travail dans ces organisations. Nous mobilisons ici la Labour Process Theory qui a particulièrement étudié la question de l’aliénation au travail en expliquant le contrôle du travail par des dispositifs coercitifs et une fabrique du consentement. Classiquement centrées sur les conflits sociaux dans les usines, nous suivons de récentes perspectives qui appliquent la LPT à de nouvelles organisations. Nous présentons ensuite notre méthode ethnographique de trois ans au sein de la Louve, le premier supermarché coopératif et participatif de France. Les résultats montrent que le travail à la Louve se présente comme la construction permanente d’un équilibre entre contestation et consentement. Les membres de la coopérative s’organisent pour porter un projet contestataire vis-à-vis des acteurs traditionnels de la grande distribution. Un imaginaire commun est activement fabriqué, régulé et stabilisé pour obtenir le consentement des membres au contrôle de leur travail volontaire. Cependant, cette organisation du travail maintient des rapports de pouvoir au sein de la coopérative en séparant les coopérateurs qui contrôlent la politique alimentaire de l’organisation de ceux qui ne font que la mettre en œuvre