From the factory to the creation of his restaurant
Halil ADA
Founder of Boss Fort
Turkish speciality restaurant
It would have been impossible to launch my project without France Active. What’s more, the questions raised by Mr. Taleb, my advisor at France Active Bourgogne, made me challenge myself and helped me improve the project.
Mâcon (Saône-et-Loire)
Turkish speciality restaurant
A line operator for the food and pharmaceutical industries, then a milling turner, Mr Ada began his professional life in a factory. He discovered the restaurant business in 2003 and moved back and forth between the two sectors until 2009.
“When I worked in the factory, an 8-hour day seemed endless, whereas in the restaurant business, I don’t see the time pass.”
Encouraged by friends and family, he decided to launch his project for a restaurant serving Turkish specialities in Mâcon. His cousin bought a building in the city centre, right on the river Saône, and suggested that he set up the restaurant on the ground floor. The perfect location for Mr Ada, who jumped at the chance.For financing, his first instinct was to knock on the door of his bank, which turned him down. He then turned to Crédit Agricole, which directed him to France Active. “It would have been impossible to launch my project without France Active. What’s more, the questions raised by Mr. Taleb, my advisor at France Active Bourgogne, made me challenge myself and helped me improve the project”.Mr Ada benefited from the Inclusion through Self-Employment* scheme, a programme launched by the Ministry of Labour, Full Employment and Integration to which France Active is responding by expanding its support offer. As part of the programme, Mr Ada attended several webinars on subjects such as business management, accounting, communication, etc., in order to fully assume his role as a business leader.After several months of works, his restaurant is opening at the beginning of October, and he can’t wait to offer his customers his delicious food.
Any advice for a project leader?
You need to be open to suggestions and criticism, both positive and negative.
“For example, my wife suggested that I create a floral wall in the restaurant’s veranda. I was reluctant at first, but I installed one and it is this detail that makes customers stop in front of my restaurant. They all ask me about the opening date. ”
Focus on the Inclusion through Self-Employment programme:
In March 2021, France Active responded to a call for projects launched by the French Ministry of Labour, Employment and Integration. On this occasion, France Active extended its Creation Pact with new support modules for the most fragile entrepreneurs, focussing on 4 themes:
- financial education (managing cash flow, managing relations with your banker, management charts and tools, crowdfunding and financial analysis and management),
- protection and security (risk prevention, social and legal protection, civil liability, cyber risks)
- digital awareness (for prospecting, brand awareness, etc.),
- awareness of commitment.
And for young people aged 18 to 30, a bonus of €3,000.
Has benefited
from a guarantees of
35 000€
Was supported by
France Active Bourgogne
In 2022
It’s here !
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The French are ever more vigilant about the impact of their consumption.
Responsible and socially committed consumption
An Odoxa survey for France Active and Réseau Entreprendre®
France Active and Réseau Entreprendre® join forces to boost the socially committed enterprises support in order to help them better meet expectations of the French.
The French has been polled about their consumption habits by Odoxa on behalf of France Active and Réseau Entreprendre®. Do they pay more attention to the impact of their purchases? Does the explosion in prices curb the desire for a responsible consumption? Do they trust companies with ethical commitments?
Although the French are now consumers who are sensitive to the impact of their purchases, many still consider it complicated to consume in a responsible and socially committed way. It’s against this backdrop that France Active and Réseau Entreprendre® have decided to join forces to support more and more committed socially entrepreneurs and help them better meet the expectations of the French.
More than 3 out of 4 French pay attention to the origin of their purchases
Societal and environmental concerns are now at the heart of the shopping baskets of the French: 77% of them say they are careful to ensure that their purchases are made in France or in their region, the criterion most cited ahead of environmental impact (63%) and societal impact (57%), which are nonetheless very important criteria for the population.
Nota bene: the need to consume “locally” is a strong trend in the French consumption evolution (+7 points since 2018).
When it comes to responsible consumption, food is the sector in which the French are most vigilant (69% of the French, and even 81% of those aged 65 and over), far ahead of hygiene and beauty products (33%) and clothing & accessories (24%).
Regarding services, they pay particular attention to the social and environmental impact of their holidays (35% of those aged between 18-24 years old, 43% of those aged between 25-30 years old), ahead of leisure activities (28%) and the bars & restaurants they go to (26%).
While the French declare themselves to be very attentive to the responsible and socially committed side of their purchases, more than 1 in 2 (53%) don’t check how the brands of their favorite products really behave in terms of societal and environmental impact.
Nevertheless, 75% of French people find responsible consumption difficult to achieve
3 out 4 French consider it complicated to consume in a responsible and socially committed way.
2 main reasons:
- The French have strong doubts about the enterprises’ sincerity regarding social commitment (69%). Besides, a large majority of them (82%) trust more the small enterprises to produce responsibly.
- They find the responsible products too expensive. In a period of high inflation, the “price” factor is important, even more so for the socio-economic group classification – (58%, versus 43% for the socio-economic group classification +).
Against this backdrop, almost 63% consider it’s up to the enterprises to lower their prices, although 36% declare themselves ready to pay more for responsible products even if it means to consume less. This intention is strong among young people (47% of those age between 18-24 years old and 49% of those aged between 25-34 years old).
8 out 10 French people would like to see more emphasis placed on responsible and socially committed companies. 81% say that we should raise awareness about social economy.
France Active and Réseau Entreprendre® join forces to develop their mutual support to impact enterprises and solidarity-based enterprises
Given that enterpreneurship should be a lever for the transformation of the society by addressing the social and environmental challenges, France Active and Réseau Entreprendre® build a partnership to increase their support to the entrepreneurs.
Both networks want to answer together to the expectations of French people who identify small enterprises as the first to be able to offer concrete solutions on social and environmental issues.
By joining forces and pooling their numerous points of contact throughout France (135 for Réseau Entreprendre® and 140 for France Active), the two networks are sharing their specific features to increase the impact and social commitment of entrepreneurs by :
- Financing more impact entrepreneurs
- Strengthening their support so that they can:
o help them grow and create jobs locally;
o better meet the expectations of the French, particularly in terms of responsible consumption, as demonstrated by this study.
Download the press release
(in French)
Rémy Bourdier
Chairman of Réseau Entreprendre®
We are a community of socially committed entrepreneurs. As such, we’ve decided to do our part to meet the societal and environmental challenges of a world that’s changing faster and faster. This study, carried out with France Active, is a way of keeping abreast of the situation and ensuring that our local action, through the creation, takeover and development of socially committed businesses in the territories, meet the expectations of the French people.
Pierre-René Lemas
Chairman de France Active
This partnership will enable us to support and finance even more entrepreneurs. The 35 regional associations in our network will be able to advise and guide entrepreneurs around the 5 pillars of commitment that structure our entire approach. These are job creation, strengthening social ties, regional development, ecology, and governance. With Réseau Entreprendre®, we are convinced of the decisive role that these companies can play in transforming our society.
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Committed to time-share!
Laëtitia NGAMA
Co-founder and director of Eden ETTP
Work time-sharing company
What I really liked about France Active was the human aspect. They were able to reassure us when we had questions about the model we are adopting. They encouraged us to go further in our commitment.
Chenove (Côte d’Or)
Work time-sharing company
Laëtitia Ngama has launched a work time-share service in Chenove on the outskirts of Dijon. It turned to France Active to help it provide a concrete solution to a need in its area: to create sustainable jobs and provide companies with access to qualified labour.
Laëtitia NGAMA, tell us about your project.
Eden ETTP is a work time-share company. The time-share model has two components to it: the employee and the company. To starting point for our project was the observation that for many employees part-time work is the only option due to childcare, taking care of a sick relative, etc. This results in an increase in fixed-term contracts, because part-time work often equates to a lack of job security.
To address this issue, we decided to develop a work time-share service: we hire employees on a permanent basis and work out the number of hours they need. They are then able to work for several of our clients.
For companies, work time-share also has an added value. In fact, in our region around Dijon in Burgundy, there are many VSEs, SMEs and artisans who are often faced with recruitment problems: too much work for one person, but not enough for two, for example. And we are now able to offer them a solution that meets their needs.
There is a great demand from employees for part-time permanent contracts. We have more difficulty finding companies which want to benefit from time-sharing, because many professionals are unaware of the law that provides the framework for this form of employment. A lot of education needs to take place with the companies to spread the word about the work time-sharing.
What did you appreciate about the support provided by France Active and its partners?
The further we got into developing our project, the more it became clear that commitment was at the heart of our project. This is why we got in contact with France Active Bourgogne and its partners. What I really liked about France Active was the human aspect. They were able to reassure us when we had questions about the model we are adopting. They encouraged us to go further in our commitment.
Have benefited
from a several guarantees of
€10,000
And was accompanied by
France Active Bourgogne
In 2021
The France Active position
Mathilde LEBREUIL
Project officer at France Active BourgogneWhat do you remember about Eden ETTP’s approach?
Laëtitia Ngama is a very motivated person who had prepared her project well in advance. She was able to respond to the comments we made throughout the assessment of her file, while staying consistent with the initial aims of her project.
How does the Integration through Self-Employment programme provide support for creators who are farthest from banks?
We offered her a training pathway after she had presented the project to the committee, explaining what could be of interest to her and benefit the development of her business. She chose the training courses in line with her project, first the cash flow workshop, then a webinar on digitalisation (how to mobilise digital to increase brand awareness, see and be seen).
Nathalie RAUCH
Director of Development at Entrepreneurs de la Cité
What stands out for you in Eden ETTP’s experience?
Eden ETTP meets a genuine business need with its work time-share solutions. This innovative offer is committed to giving people access to employment, while meeting the demands of the labour market. From our point of view, it is important for this structure to be legally protected, particularly with regard to the contracts it signs. It’s therefore essential to choose the right insurance.
It is important to take the measure of your responsibility as a company.
How can the experience of creators like Eden ETTP be made more secure?
Being well insured contributes to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the company. It is therefore important for a creator to have access to insurance, which is at the heart of the Entrepreneurs de la Cité mission. Any uninsured business is fine as long as nothing happens to it.
When faced with a claim, insurance companies provide support to help them cope financially. Like France Active, Entrepreneurs de la Cité provides assistance to the most vulnerable entrepreneurs. You can’t insure for everything, so we help them to identify the risks that are a potential threat to their organisation. Lacking insurance can often have dramatic outcomes for entrepreneurs, which is why we need to identify the essentials to be insured for each project.
It’s here !
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Europe day : the European Union support for France Active is a lever for action towards a more inclusive and sustainable economy
The European Union support is crucial for the social economy, which is a sector with a high employment and inclusive growth potential. France Active believes that the local and regional levels have an important role to play in the development of the sector, taking into account the specificities and opportunities of each territory.
On Europe Day, France Active would like to thank its European partners for their steady commitment for social economy. Thanks to their support, through the European program for employment and social innovation and the structural funds for instance, France Active has been able to develop initiatives, which aim to support young entrepreneurs, evaluate the impact of social enterprises, and develop the whole ecosystem. Read about their experiences.
Europe Day, they talk about France Active
Brigitte Fellahi-Brognaux
Head of Unit DG EMPL – European Commission
“For many years, the EU has been mobilizing its funds to support France Active in the service social economy. Its dynamic and global approach to support social entreprises as well as the scope and diversity of its methods of action stands out. In the past, the European structural funds, as well as the European program for social innovation, have supported France Active Garantie and initiatives such as Cap’Jeunes, to support young entrepreneurs, as well as VISES, which develops an impact assessment approach adapted to the specificities of social enterprises, and IMPACT +, which aims to develop support for the entire ecosystem.
These programs are in line with the European strategy to support the social economy, a sector that creates jobs and an inclusive and sustainable growth, which yet remains underestimated in many EU Member States.
We share France Active’s conviction that the local and regional levels have an essential role to play in the development of the sector, which is so diverse from one Member State to another and according to the economic sectors covered. The social economy can only develop by considering the particularities and opportunities of each territory, as shown by the work of the regional associations of the France Active network. Moreover, France Active’s commitments in favor of new entrepreneurs or the ecological transition are perfectly in line with the priorities of the European Action Plan for the Social Economy adopted in 2021. Our common goal is to put people and the planet before profit, for a sustainable and fair transition.
All in all, the France Active network sets an example in the financial support ecosystem through its ability to provideds the socially committed enterprises with the financial as well as non-financial support that is best suited to their needs at different stages of a company’s life cycle.
As we seek today to fill the persistent gap between supply and demand of repayable financing for social enterprises in Europe, France Active is a source of inspiration to improve the financial products and programs offered in and by the European Union.”
Antoine Fleuret
Public partnerships and European development officer – France Active
“The European funds have been funding and innovation levers for the France Active network for many years.
The European Social Fund, among others, has enabled to support, to connect and to fund an increased number of entrepreneurs far from the banking system (job seekers, recipients of minimum social benefits, young people under 26, women, etc.) as well as social enterprises. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), for their part, have strengthened financial instruments towards socially committed entrepreneurs. Finally, the European Commission programs have made it possible to implement experimentations to enhance the France Active tools dedicated to specific stages of social enterprises’ lifecyle (seed or scaling up for instance).
For all these reasons, as well as for their role in structuring and professionalizing the France Active network or for their incentive character with other European, national and local funders, European funds are essential. ”
Julien Mollis
Head of the « Faire Mouvement » department – France Active Centre Val de Loire
“Social impact is at the heart of the challenges that the social enterprises are facing. The European Union has funded implementation of the VISES project with the support of the France – Wallonie – Vlanderen INTERREG program. This enables us now to develop a reproducible method of evaluating this impact.
After a launch in 2020 in the Centre-Val de Loire French region, we were able to support 3 groups in this process and thus demonstrate that social enterprises have a very large and essential impact in their ecosystem. We thus enable them to seize their evaluation and enter into a process of continuous improvement of this social impact.”
Emmanuel de Carayon
Co-founder – Fratries
“Our project was made possible thanks to the support of France Active which offered us a European funding that allowed us to launch our first house in Nantes”.
Aurélien and Emmanuel de Carayon launched Fratries, which develops innovative shared housing: modern houses, in the heart of cities, in which young working people, with or without disabilities, live together. The first house was built in Nantes in 2022, two others will open their doors this year in Rennes (35) and Colombes (92) and other projects are underway in other French cities.
This social enterprise was financed by France Active Bretagne via a bank loan guarantee and an investment, both covered by the European Investment Fund (EIF)
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A friendly meeting place in the heart of the priority urbanisation zone in Blois
Benoît MORIN
Director of Escale et Habitat
Hostel for young workers, student residence, tourist centre, restaurant and conference centre
If I had only one word to say to France Active, it would be: continue! Please continue to support organisations like ours.
Blois (Loir et Cher)
Hostel for young workers, student residence, tourist centre, restaurant and conference centre
Historically a young workers’ hostel, Escale et Habitat is a social economy association located in the centre of the priority urbanisation zone in Blois. Today, the association has diversified its activities, it also welcomes students and groups of tourists (schoolchildren, sportsmen, families…) and individuals, who come to visit the châteaux of the Loire but not only…, and hires rooms out to companies and associations.
A collective catering service has also been developed and is open to everyone. This restaurant is all about encouraging intergenerational contact: a 96 year old lady rubs shoulders with the young residents. Mr Morin explains: “It’s really interesting is to see the discussions and bonds that form between our various audiences, both in the restaurant and at all the events we organise. ”. In recent months, Escale et Habitat has been welcoming deaf and hard-of-hearing people to its premises.
In the restaurant, “we buy from local producers wherever possible. Quality products help us in the fight against waste, because consumers don’t leave much on their plates anymore. We will soon be setting up a system for weighing waste every day and displaying the results in the canteen so that everyone can limit their impact on the environment by reducing what goes into the bins. ” explains Wilfried Arnoult, head chef of Escale et Habitat.
Reducing environmental impact whilst developing employment: “by improving the quality of the products we use, we have increased the number of customers and therefore the number of employees in the kitchen” says Mr Morin, director of the organisation.
Support from France Active:
France Active supported Escale et Habitat in 2011 and 2012 for refurbishment works.
In 2021, it continued to provide support for the modernisation of its facilities. France Active’s role was to guarantee the loans.
“If I had only one word to say to France Active, it would be: continue to do what you are doing with organisations like ours because we really need this support”.
Has benefited
from several guarantees of
130,000€
from several investments of
100,000€
Was supported by
France Active Centre Val de Loire
In 2011
In 2012
In 2021
It’s here !
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A Creole food truck: an idea that Octavie had been mulling over for many years
Octavie BELLUNE
Founder of “Doucès pays”
Caribbean food truck
I wanted my project to be well structured, and the workshops allowed me to exchange with other project leaders.
Amiens (Somme)
Caribbean food truck
A long road to entrepreneurship
The food truck Doucès Pays (Delicious local food in Creole) has parked up in Avenue de Bourgogne in Etouvie, a district of Amiens, after a long journey. At 53 years old, Octavie Bellune has had several lives that have made her to what she is today: an entrepreneur who has created an activity that motivates her, cooking and more specifically West Indian cooking. “I passed my baccalaureate after the age of 30, because I had just got divorced”, she explains. “For 10 years, I was a customs broker in Martinique, then I came to France in 2016. I needed a change of scene.” When she arrived in Amiens, she started out as a temporary worker, but very quickly the idea of setting up her own business increasingly appealed. The BGE network encouraged her to take further qualifications in order to be able to work, which she did selflessly, accumulating a cookery vocational qualification, a professional qualification certificate for second-in-command chefs, and a BTS in management. “During the Covid period, I thought about what I really wanted and the idea of the food truck came up”, explains Octavie Bellune. “I canvassed the funding networks for the self-employed and arrived at France Active at the beginning of 2022.”
Structuring the project
With her characteristic tenacity, she attended all the association’s workshops, more than fifteen of them! “I wanted my project to be well structured, and the workshops allowed me to exchange with other project leaders”, she says. Since last August, her truck has been out on the streets of Amiens, an acquisition that she was able to make thanks to the France Active guarantee on her 10,000 euro bank loan. “As I was unemployed just before I started, I couldn’t get credit”, she says. “France Active was my guarantor with the bank.” She was also able to take out loans to buy her goods, some of which come from Martinique. Octavia Bellune’s days continue to be busy.
Her daily life as an entrepreneur
She gets up at 4 a.m. to prepare the hot dishes, accras, shrimps and chicken breast. With the help of her granddaughter, she then loads the dishes into the compartments in the food truck, which she has also fitted out, and serves her customers from 11 am to 2.30 pm and then from 6 pm to 9 pm. Customers have got used to seeing the Doucès Pays truck decked out in the colours of Martinique arriving from afar. Some of them now come especially from other districts of Amiens and even from Beauvais!
Focus on the Inclusion through Self-Employment programme
In March 2021, France Active responded to a call for projects launched by the French Ministry of Labour, Employment and Integration. On this occasion, France Active extended its Creation Pact with new support modules for the most fragile entrepreneurs, focussing on 4 themes:
- financial education (managing cash flow, managing relations with your banker, management charts and tools, crowdfunding and financial analysis and management),
- protection and security (risk prevention, social and legal protection, civil liability, cyber risks)
- digital awareness (for prospecting, brand awareness, etc.),
- awareness of commitment.
And for young people aged 18 to 30, a bonus of €3,000.
This project benefited
from two guarantees for a total value of
24 000€
Was accompanied by
France Active Picardie
In 2022
It’s here !
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Appeal by Claude Alphandéry – Economy: increasing social cooperation across France
On the occasion of his 100th birthday, Claude Alphandéry, resistance fighter, visionary of the social and solidarity economy and founder of France Active, launches an appeal to accelerate the transformation of our economy so that it becomes fundamentally more social, more inclusive and more sustainable. An appeal that invites citizens, key players in the social economy, local authorities, associations and social entrepreneurs to create spaces for solidarity-based cooperation across all the regions of France.
These one hundred years of life give me the opportunity and the desire to reflect on the war years and the present. In 1940, when I was less than 20 years old, I experienced the unprecedented collapse of my country, a radical defeat, a relentless repression. Recent years have been more insidious, apparently less dramatic. However, they are no less cruelly destructive through the effects of ecological, economic and social crises.
Resistance has twice responded to these disasters. In 1940, in the face of peril, a Resistance, at first disorganised, then gaining in strength with the maquis, contributed to victory and participated in the construction of a social democracy through the CNR programme. Today, resistance has moved to the economic front. We must repair the deleterious effects of a global economy engaged in unbridled competition for unlimited financial profits, whatever the cost to humanity and nature.
In both cases, in the midst of mortal perils, renewal emerges, yesterday those astonishing maquis, and in the present day, the surprising social, solidarity-based, sustainable start-ups.
France Active supports them and accompanies their initiatives; these are multiplying, repairing flagrant ills, but remain all too occasional and too fragmented to create a powerful movement, an economic model, to garner much opinion. Many entrepreneurs themselves, proud of their social and environmental action, sometimes doubt their political impact in the face of multinational billions.
Promising experiences
Nevertheless, there are more examples of more advanced experiences of cooperation; these are often carried out by the entrepreneurs supported by France Active; they in turn wish to impart a broader sense of solidarity to life: give and you will receive. They open up avenues and progress towards more complex and systematic cooperation.
All these experiences of cooperation invite us to progress from very worthy, but isolated and marginal resistance to profound transformations that allow these experiences to develop, accelerate and perpetuate. I see it as a way of inscribing field practices, this essential praxis, into a broader vision, the ethical imagination of a future respecting humanity and nature.This ethic, however, is not easily assumed: it is thwarted by the interplay of contradictory situations, interests and behaviours that blur and darken the vision of the future. Many are reluctant to identify with an ideal that seems distant and that the dominant ideology describes as utopian, as powerless in the face of a reality controlled by finance.
But where does this powerlessness lie? It lies among those who, out of greed for profit, persist in ignoring the disaster that has been foretold, in looking the other way. Conversely, entrepreneurs who strengthen their bonds of solidarity and mutual trust through their collective intelligence and inventiveness are powerful levers of prosperity.
This effort to bring people together is not an isolated approach; indeed, it is encouraged and facilitated by many local and regional authorities, which support numerous solidarity initiatives and include them in a vision of solidarity development for their region; it is also supported by public, private and mixed groups such as the Pacte du Pouvoir de Vivre.
To increase the chances and scope of their cooperation, it seems desirable to encourage and help them to form clubs, embassies of cooperation, in their region; these are places where people get to know each other, exchange ideas and practices, and affirm values and their concept of society and the economy.
Nearly eighty years ago, I created some of these clubs in the maquis, drawing on the history of the Republican clubs. There they learned about democracy. Today, when the progress stemming from Resistance is being challenged, we need these clubs to strengthen our bonds of solidarity and cooperation.
They must be facilitating, supportive entities that help to identify, contact and mobilise all the physical or moral, private or public forces whose mission is to publicise, support, finance and accompany the development of cooperative ventures, to specify their purpose, their projects, their means and to be clear about their difficulties.
In the name of my one hundred years of passion for everything that solidarity means and entails, I therefore launch an appeal to multiply and further these clubs, these places of cooperation. I call for the creation of at least one hundred clubs in the next two years across all of France. I know that I can count on France Active and all stakeholders in the social economy to work together to amplify all these positive cooperative ventures that create social links and make the world of tomorrow a desirable place to be.
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For a Europe of solidarity on territories – the inspirational speech of Claude Alphandéry, the honorary President of France Active
Claude Alphandéry, Honorary President & Founder of France Active, celebrated his 100th birthday on 27th November 2022. The resistance fighter and visionary of social economy took this opportunity to call for new cooperation to accelerate the transformation towards a more social, more inclusive, and more sustainable economy.In this video recorded few months before his birthday as France was holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union, the staunch European shares his view of the social dimension of the European Union. In his opinion, the economical Europe is what made the faster step forward during the past ten years, especially regarding markets opening and competition between member States. He also thinks that the cultural dimension of Europe has spread well as well as the education, thanks to the very useful Erasmus programme. However, little has been made regarding the social dimension of Europe, especially on solidarity and the relationships between people in everyday life as well as in working life.Recovery is a good opportunity to “embed the social utility in the economic activity”. With the support of the European Investment Bank, all the member states should be able to give priority to solidarity-based investments. Moreover, it’s important to give a greater place to the territories to push the Europe of solidarity forward. According to Claude Alphandéry, there are many initiatives throughout Europe that can be shared to inspire stakeholders on the field. This can be seen through the growth of the Third Place, or the development of a global approach to health care in living areas, short circuits, etc.All these approaches must be developed and generalised to all European countries: each territory has the power to make Europe more social and more united.https://vimeo.com/777298012
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An innovative card for solidarity-based gifts
Séverin PRATS
Creator of Ethi’Kdo
Solidarity-based gift cards
Ethi’Kdo is a non-profit cooperative that offers the first gift card for ecological and solidarity-based stores in France.
75012 Paris
Solidarity-based gift cards
A 100% solidarity-based card
A former professional rugby player, Séverin Prats wound his career down following numerous injuries. A graduate in sustainable development management, he worked for a few years in the recycling sector, on a national scale. His awareness of responsible consumption became even greater. One day, he was wanted to give a colleague a ‘zero waste’ gift for a farewell party, without buying anything new. Impossible to find anything suitable. “I said to myself that there should be a gift card available that can be used in recycling centres and other sustainable consumption shops. The traditional players in the multi-brand gift card sector only list major brands and nobody from the social and solidarity-based economy”. And that was the trigger. ” I didn’t want to be an entrepreneur; I was in a comfortable situation” he says and went through a lot of stages before really making the commitment. “But something really needed to be done, and I knew that if I didn’t do it, I would feel bad about it. In the face of the coming ecological crisis, I didn’t feel I could not contribute. And what would I have told my children when they asked me about it. The project wasn’t too huge, so I went for it”.
Surround yourself with people, work as a group and get started
With his past in team sports, Séverin has a taste for cooperation and relies on the SCIC status, allowing all the stakeholders of the project to make decisions together regarding the strategic orientations that Ethi’Kdo would take, to become involved and to help him find his bearings in this new sector. “It was necessary to create a network of stores, both online and physical. I wanted the card to be valid for making donations, to be physical so that it could be passed from hand to hand, but also digital, to rise to all the challenges. There was no system available for making a multi-brand digital card that could be used directly in the store. This is the really innovative technical aspect of the project. You can pay just like with a classic card with our gift card. To achieve all this, I needed lots of support”. Officially created in April 2019, the company completed its first financing session in July 2019, having attracted support from various parties such as Bpifrance, Les Cigales, La Nef, the city of Paris, the participatory financing platform Ulule and PIE (France Active Paris). On 15 November 2019, 18 months after the initial idea, Éthi’Kdo launched the first 100% ecological and solidarity-based multi-brand gift card to the general public. “Being supported was essential, if only to ask the right questions. PIE* got us thinking about our fundraising. We then went through the France Active seed fund, which helped us to develop, to see the bigger picture and also to unlock other funding. Thanks to this programme, several innovations were launched, including the échoppe de la Transition, and to experiment with the distribution of our cards in bulk shops, physical shops and concierge services. I don’t think we would have done it without France Active”
Responsible consumption, from marginal to the norm?
The organisation is approaching shops so that it can offer payment by Ethi’Kdo card. The aim is not to have as many sales outlets as possible, but to offer payment in an ethical shop throughout France. “Most of the products we offer are provided by structures financed by France Active. It is not surprising that committed stakeholders in this area are working together and pushing in the same direction: responsible consumption, healthy development in an ecosystem that feeds off each other’s successes”. It will only become more popular. “We are the only ones offering a gift card with 100% responsibly sourced products. We fight against greenwashing, we put ethics at the heart of the model, we offer donations”. There is no doubt that responsible consumption will continue to be an important part of our choices.
Has benefited
from guarantees of
€34,750
from an investment of
€80,000
Was supported by
France Active MPA Occitanie
In 2020
It’s here !
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