Eric Duverger

Through a mindset transformation among prominent corporate leaders and harnessing the power of collective intelligence, Eric is reshaping the landscape of business leadership. His ultimate aim is to establish the regenerative economy model as the prevailing and irresistible standard. With the Convention des Entreprises pour le Climat (CEC), Eric is building a new community of influential visionary business leaders, willing to reach prosperity by combining a heightened consciousness of global challenges and remaining connected to their inner purposes.

Eric envisions a paradigm shift in the very essence of leadership and business model, transcending its current foundation in profit-driven, short-term perspectives toward a regenerative and empathic approach. One that harmoniously melds the sustainability of living systems with the generation of value. This evolution is firmly anchored in the principles of empathy and scientific pragmatism. Drawing from his substantial experience in a multinational corporation, Eric realized that prevailing leadership paradigms often encourage self-serving and exploitative behaviors. These patterns reflect unsustainable practices reliant on boundless growth fueled by the depletion of finite resources, which are then translated into corporate environments. Therefore, Eric empowers a new community of conscious executive leaders able to implement thorough change within their own companies and society, using their influence.

Taking inspiration from the success of the Citizen’s Climate Convention, a French political innovation initiated by Macron to involve citizens in policymaking regarding the environment, Eric decided to formulate a program that would audaciously challenge prevailing leadership and business paradigms. In 2020, Eric decided to create the Convention des entreprises pour le Climat (Climate Convention for Companies, CEC), bringing aboard the same amount of company directors along with their corporate social responsibility (CSR) managers to challenge the current leadership and business models, considering the planetary boundaries given the urgency of the climate crisis. The predominant objective is to chart a roadmap aimed at devising a set of ambitious measures to achieve a more regenerative business model by the year 2030.

Distinguishing his approach from comparable initiatives, Eric aimed to engage high-ranking business leaders who expressed a deliberate interest in joining the program. Recognizing the pivotal role that companies play in confronting the climate crisis, Eric's innovative strategy involves enlisting these influential leaders in an experience aimed at transforming their mindsets. Their participation is highly effective, given that they hold the precise authority and influence required to enact profound transformation within their respective organizations.

The training and workshop sessions are grounded in two primary objectives. The first is to facilitate a deep self-examination among participants, fostering a receptive mindset primed for embracing transformative change. The second goal centers on the establishment of a balance between economic viability and environmental sustainability within their new business and leadership practices, built upon the principles of a regenerative economy. For instance, by using recycled and/or bio-sourced materials in the production process, and through rallying the ecosystems of regenerative organizations related to their fields (reforestation or revegetation for example), involving employees who want to be part of the social and environmental activities.

At the heart of Eric's strategy lies the intention to shatter certain inertia, challenging the prevailing "business as usual" extractive model that has been empirically established as incompatible with the imperatives of climate sustainability. His strategy envisions guiding top executive leaders away from this established path towards an alternative trajectory of their own design. This journey is supported by the experts and guarantors (coaches and facilitators) of the Climate Convention for Companies (CEC).

After the remarkable success of the CEC, which engaged 300 leaders in a transformative journey towards the transition to the adoption of regenerative practices, the initiative's influence has expanded significantly to encompass regional levels within France. As of August 2023, there are currently five active cohorts, with three more set to commence in September. This extension owes much to the enthusiastic engagement of former participants who, having completed the program, chose to contribute as volunteers to the CEC's growth. Their involvement takes various forms, including program development, financial support, conference participation, and the sharing of best practices with other organizations. This commitment underscores the enduring impact of the program and the far-reaching effects it generates. In total, the ripple effect has touched the lives of around 300,000 employees.

Notably, two prominent French business schools took part in the inaugural CEC edition, and ongoing efforts are fostering partnerships with additional business schools. These collaborations include the Rice University chapter in Paris and HEC, aiming to integrate the principles of the regenerative economy and the awareness of planetary boundaries into the curricula of students. This way, the upcoming generations of businesspeople are taught about these key principles for a sustainable economy prior to their entry into the professional realm and can therefore be more impactful as professionals.

The profitability models of economic growth are not sustainable with the current climate crisis challenges. As far back as 1972, the "Limits to Growth" report, or Meadows report, sounded the alarm about the inherent conflict between the boundaries of growth and the repercussions of our economic framework. This very conflict casts doubt on the prospects for future generations to inhabit a hospitable and habitable planet. Fast-forwarding to 2022, the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a resounding wake-up call. Their report underscored that countries possess the capacity to halve their greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, provided they take decisive and far-reaching actions in the immediate years ahead. This imperative reflects the urgency of the situation and underscores the need for transformative change.

Moreover, inextricably intertwined, business and leadership models are profoundly shaped by the values that traditionally underpin organizational success, and its high level of profitability, that must be achieved without necessarily taking account of planetary limits and wellbeing of employees. Since its inception in the 1950s, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has undergone a continuous evolution to stand as an integral component of numerous companies' strategies, exerting a substantial influence on an expanding base of consumers nowadays. Furthermore, business evaluation has seen the emergence of Economic, Social, and Governance (ESG) indicators that serve as a tool to assess a company's performance and its impact in critical domains tied to sustainability, responsible business conduct, and corporate governance. Companies that prioritize robust ESG practices attract and retain employees who value ethical conduct and social responsibility and position themselves favorably in terms of accessing capital. Beyond this, such practices contribute to the augmentation of a company's reputation and the enhancement of its brand value.

Nevertheless, despite this commendable progress witnessed over the past decades with the increasing integration of ESG criteria and CSR initiatives in business models, these efforts remain insufficient to nullify the greenhouse gas emissions primarily stemming from economic activities. Averting a climate crisis demands a comprehensive overhaul of existing business models toward realizing a regenerative model. That entails a fundamental shift in the mindset of managerial leaders, involving the seamless integration of the safeguarding of the well-being of living entities into their very definition of success. As long as a company's primary performance metric remains its level of profitability, only a limited number of top leaders will have the motivation to explore significantly more sustainable business and leadership models.

This transition signifies undertaking a pivotal step toward reconciling economic pursuits with both ecological sustainability and accountable leadership toward all stakeholders. In 2022, a study established that 34% of the working population has faced a situation of nervous breakdown, three times more than before the 2020 pandemic. This data highlights the rising public and mental health issues generated by work conditions, hence the growing need to reconsider current leadership models.

As for policymakers, undertaking a systemic change regarding the business model can be highly sensitive. An example to illustrate this idea was the unprecedented initiative launched by French President Macron in 2019. The Citizen’s Convention for Climate (CCC) gathered 150 citizens randomly sorted to work for 6 months along with scientific experts in order to draw political proposals abiding by the goals set by the Paris Agreement of 2015. Despite great popularity and general praise for this initiative, around two-thirds of the propositions were later rejected by the Government and Members of Parliament as deemed too ambitious. Furthermore, it appears clearly that top business leaders constitute more suitable actors to effectively rethink and apply a more sustainable business model to their own organizations, should they first be aware of the situation and willing to undertake profound changes.

At the heart of Eric's strategy lies the pivotal goal of dismantling a kind of paralysis embodied by the entrenched "business as usual" extractive model. This model has been conclusively recognized as fundamentally incompatible with the principles of climate sustainability. Eric's strategy seeks to usher top-level executives toward a fresh trajectory of their own design. The participants receive peer support with twelve guarantors overseeing the process and volunteering to facilitate the seminars undertaken to design a roadmap for more regenerative business and leadership models. Their role encompassed attentive listening, strategic counsel, and challenging the proposals put forth by participants. The guarantors, drawn from the ranks of sustainable development experts and business organizations, ensured the integrity and effectiveness of the process. Following the program, the participants join the network of CEC alumni, a group of conscious leaders devoted to radically challenge the current business and leadership models relying on the values of empathy and environmental sustainability, within their organizations and beyond.

The inaugural session of the CEC took place over a span of twelve days between September 2021 and June 2022. This immersive experience brought together 150 company directors, accompanied by their CSR managers. At the end of the program, a delegation of participants presented a comprehensive roadmap featuring ten pivotal political proposals brought to the attention of two ministries of Ecological and Environmental Transition. Additionally, the CEC members were sought for consultation by the Senate and the National Assembly, where they presented their carefully formulated recommendations.

The Convention's program rests on three steadfast pillars:

Integration of Body, Mind, and Heart: At the core of the program lies the creation of a secure environment in which participants can meaningfully enhance their self-awareness and envisage potential transformations in their deeply ingrained beliefs and practices. Participants are encouraged to establish connections with their bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions, and to scrutinize whether they resonate in harmony or discord. Given the pressing concerns related to the impacts of climate change, this reflective space becomes even more imperative. It serves as fertile ground for nurturing constructive ideas. To illustrate, an activity involves participants embarking on a "walk of deep time," covering a distance of 4.5 kilometers in reference to the Earth's 4.5-billion-year existence. This journey enables participants to retrace the key stages of the planet's evolution, fostering a profound alignment with its history.

An integral facet of the program involves the incorporation of the Theory U framework. This transformative approach serves as a beacon for profound change and innovation, guiding both individuals and groups through a U-shaped process that entails deep listening, introspection, and collaborative co-creation. It necessitates the suspension of judgment, tapping into inner wisdom, and collaborative efforts to generate novel possibilities and solutions. Through this framework, participants are prompted to engage in introspection, challenging their own beliefs and actions. This inward journey empowers them to confront their cognitive dissonance with creativity, rendering adherence to the former model morally untenable.

Striking a harmonious equilibrium between ecological activism and a pro-business stance: the CEC's position occupies a nuanced realm that situates it as a "sweet spot" within the landscape of both environmental advocacy and pro-business organizations. Here, it avoids the extremes of operating as an unwavering advocate of the "business as usual" approach, as well as eschewing the stance of an anti-capitalist activist. Instead, it grounds itself in the realm of economic and scientific pragmatism: natural resources being limited, and to continue growing, businesses need to adapt their models from extraction to regeneration. In this light, Eric champions an audacious environmental transformation that sidesteps the avenues of criticism and shame to offer an approach that is inherently constructive. By enlisting the participation of business directors, he facilitates the creation of their own roadmaps and the navigation of their own cognitive dissonance. This strategy ultimately engenders an environment where ambitious environmental change is not imposed but rather collaboratively navigated and embraced.

Transition to a Regenerative Economic Paradigm: Eric advocates for a shift towards a regenerative economic model. His appeal is rooted in the recognition that the persistence of the existing business model could eventually confront insurmountable planetary limits, thereby constraining future business prospects. He positions the regenerative economic model as the natural outcome, stemming from a progression that begins with the conventional "business as usual" mindset, traverses through the realms of contributive and responsible corporate frameworks that encompass the integration of CSR and ESG indicators, yet confront their inherent limitations. The regenerative economic paradigm champions the pursuit of harmonious prosperity, placing it ahead of pure profitability. In this paradigm, the unsustainable negative externalities of profit-centric approaches are no longer tenable, fostering an environment where business growth is congruent with ecological and societal well-being. Regenerating means going beyond reducing or neutralizing negative impacts and working to generate net positive impacts for ecosystems and society. Regeneration is about putting life and living things, whether human or not, at the heart of every action and decision.

The program consists of six sessions, each lasting two days and it spanned across ten months on average. These sessions take place in various cities across France. The first one, “Taking stock and looking ahead to the new world”, centered on the difficult realization that our development model has come to the end of the road, and the need to take a different path and move forward together towards a shared determination to build a new economy. A second session, “New path”, focused on the need to reinvent business models, presented the CEC’s political co-construction approach and projected participants into a desirable future centered on prosperity more than wealth. The third session, “A new dashboard”, looked at how to transform performance measurement standards and tools, and how the financial world could support the transition. There were also conversations with the Minister for the Ecological Transition, representing the world of politics. The fourth session, “Human ingenuity”, explored ideas for redirecting human ingenuity to protect the natural world and shared expectations for the roadmaps that participating companies would use to change direction and become regenerative businesses. The fifth session, “All aboard!”, explored the scope for involving the business’ cooperative ecosystem in building and putting in place a roadmap to change direction and become regenerative. Finally, the sixth and last session, “Up and away”, gathered the contributions from participants (150 roadmaps and 28 cooperative projects), put policy proposals from participants to the vote and adopted them, celebrated how far it had come both individually and collectively, and looked ahead to what comes next.

Following the CEC, the director of Renault Trucks, a global leader of juggernaut, announced the company will undertake three main measures. First, to leave carbon-intensive transport with the production of trucks that consume less diesel, more electric series and others using biofuel. Secondly, they committed to reviewing logistics with the pooling of trucks (avoid them traveling half empty), and to prioritize the development of river or rail transport, and the use of electric cargo tricycles for the “last mile”. Finally, they wish to raise the life cycle of trucks through renovation, reconversion, or recycling.

The resounding success of the first CEC edition propelled Eric into the spotlight, as numerous companies and federations across France expressed keen interest in replicating the program. The resolute backing of the initial session's participants, including a former CEO of an American multinational based in France who opted to resign from his position to champion the program's expansion in the Lyon region, underscored the far-reaching impact of the CEC. As of August 2023, five ongoing CECs are underway throughout France, with an additional three poised to commence in September.

Due to the keen interest in replicating the CEC, Eric established a set of rules to license the program. To replicate the CEC model in different locations, the initiator must undergo comprehensive training and integrate the three fundamental pillars of the CEC: the integration of heart, mind, and body; the balanced stance between ecological activism and a pro-business orientation; and the objective of formulating a pathway towards a regenerative business paradigm. Certain aspects of the program can be flexibly tailored to align more closely with the unique local context of a given territory or sector in which the CEC is implemented. The replications are monitored by a dedicated member of the CEC’s core team to ensure their successful completion. Additional expansion initiatives encompass the establishment of a massive open online course (MOOC) named the "CEC Academy" incorporating specialized paid features. The revenues generated will be channeled to fund the CEC. Furthermore, considering its substantial scalability potential – underscored by the influx of replication requests from other European countries – a licensing system is envisaged to provide a financial foundation for the nonprofit organization. The network of the CEC has garnered significant interest in replicating the program's success and volunteer teams are planning to expand abroad in 2024, including England, Belgium, Switzerland, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and a forming team in Spain, composed of four individuals.

In addition to replicating the CEC program across various regions, Eric has introduced specialized sectorial CECs tailored to strategic domains with significant potential for broad impact. These include the financial sector, scheduled to commence in September, and the ongoing CEC dedicated to consulting companies. A relevant element of this strategy is that both these sectors – finance and consulting – typically yield substantial revenues and have the potential to trickle down their impact to clients and partners. This inherent expansive nature amplifies the potential impact of the positive social and economic effects generated by the CEC.

In essence, the Convention's program invites participants to embark on a voyage of profound self-examination. By probing their beliefs and actions, participants are empowered to grapple with their cognitive dissonance in a transformative and imaginative manner. This approach serves as a compelling catalyst for change, particularly considering the urgent demands posed by climate change, necessitating a departure from former paradigms. Through the program of the CEC, Eric is harnessing the magic of collective intelligence that he saw happening in the Climate Citizen Convention and addressing it to the more adequate actors to implement actual change: top business leaders. Replicated to a large extent, the social impact of the CEC relies on the far end, shifting the economic model, and thus transforming the landscape where companies operate through a rippling effect with the empowerment of all employees. The development of an influential community of new visionary business leaders, who actively promote the model of a regenerative economic model, will challenge the current narratives making the regenerative economy model, the new and irresistible norm.

The son of teachers, Eric grew up in the suburbs of Saint-Etienne (near Lyons) from a middle-class background. Being a good student, he was oriented to attend a prep school to pursue business studies although he did not have a specific interest or knowledge regarding the business world.

Eric moved to Paris at 18 to attend a prestigious business school where he chaired a not-for-profit student organization named, Accède (Access), which conducted market studies for unemployed people hoping to create their own companies. They gained media attention and spread the program to a dozen other business schools, and successfully secured partnerships with Air France and railway companies which covered their travel expenses.

After completing his studies, he proudly joined Michelin, a French multinational tire company, known for its ethical standards, for providing expatriation opportunities, and professional mobility. Indeed, Eric held very different positions within the company in the 28 years he worked there: marketing, commerce, pricing, strategy, human resources, and leadership. He worked in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Mexico, and finally, in the United States until 2020. While in Michelin, Eric undertook a notable intrapreneurship initiative to implement practices respecting the environment such as proposing the production of a “green tire” (composed of 46% “sustainable” materials, i.e., bio sourced) that was developed in 2021.

His mindset radically changed in early 2020 due to several events. Eric was then based in North Carolina occupying the position of marketing director for Michelin. He applied for an upper management position which was denied to him on the basis that he was perceived as a convening manager but not firm enough to climb up the job ladder. His boss then suggested he follow training on conflict management and assertiveness, his weak spots at the time. Through this training, his life mission appeared to him as a breakthrough that he phrased as following: “I want to facilitate the emergence of the right leaders for the world”. To him, both topics – leadership and environmental sustainability – were closely related in the sense that including the wellbeing of the employees as part of the management strategy is strongly linked to the integration of the preservation of living entities into the business model.

At the same time, one of his co-workers at the same level of management had been reported several times for practicing toxic behaviors that seriously endangered the mental health of his employees. Despite all the testimonies, this person never got fired from the company, and Eric decided to report him in front of the ethics committee of Michelin, which led to his departure a few months later. This event was followed by the establishment of serious measures to prevent additional mental harassment in the workplace.

These events urged Eric to undertake serious changes as he understood both problems – leadership and an economic model incompatible with the limited natural resources – were systemic and needed to be tackled at the root. Besides, this happened during the first lock-down due to Covid pandemic in 2020 when the whole world was questioning our sustainability model. In the summer of 2020, Eric Duverger was profoundly inspired by the closing speech of the Citizen’s Convention for Climate, an unprecedented democratic initiative launched by President Emmanuel Macron that gathered 150 randomly selected citizens to formulate political proposals to align with the COP21 Paris Agreements. Eric asked himself whether it would be possible to do the same exercise with company CEOs and took a sabbatical from his job at the Michelin Group to find out.

After exploring the idea for several months, he brought together a collective of people who believed it was time the business world played its full part in the transition to sustainability. Soon, numerous volunteers joined his project and together they sketched out the main ideas to address the governance structures of companies and their business models in accordance with the respect of planetary limits. The program is designed to help company directors deeply rethink their economic model and reconcile the seemingly conflicting goals of sustainability and profitability.