Posts by: Hugues Chatelain

When two environments benefit from eachother with a common goal: to improve their impact on society. This is the story of a partnership between Euromaster Suisse SA & Accademia Dimitri (university affiliated to the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland).

What happpens when a company decides to avoid using mainstream marketing tools & communication streams? What if a company decides to put more than half its marketing budget into a long term societal project? How would the main stream management actors react?

Breaking the golden business rules learnt at university and business schools would mean in every case taking risks. We do not learn enough to try something different which could have an impact within the company and on society. We don’t necessarily speak about huge impact but it all starts with lesser impacts, which when accumulated achieve more and create value for both society and business. It is all about having the courage to question habits and dogmatic theories of a system which seems no longer to achieve progress in a societal direction but mainly (only?) in growth. Growth and financial return on investment is the mantra. Dealing with progress is different. It means combining those energies, which, at first sight, seem to be contradictory. And our society needs to replace principles of growth with principals which target a balance between Profit, Planet & People.

Taking the initiative and investing half of your marketing budget in a societal project with a high impact is an act of courage that most of us should cherish, support and actively try to implement. In fact its not all about courage but about common sense.

The nurturing of a different way of thinking and doing has a tremendous impact on innovation and on how we all percieve our environnement. This fosters new ways of solving problems, of adressing complexity and of coping with outstanding solutions which have a chance to be more progressive and have a positive impact on society.

The experiment launched between Euromaster Suisse SA and Accademia Dimitri shows, from the beginning, that the two organisations thus achieve a mutual benefit. The partnership project between the two entities has one common goal: to build an inclusive movement to trigger a changed mindset recognizing the necessity to invest in environmental and societal sustainability. The project focusses at first on Sustainable Development Goals (UN Global Compact SDGs) Nr.10 Integration and Nr.13 CO2 emission’s reduction. Accademia Dimitri is engaged on all 17 SDGs and translates each goal into a vision : “What would the world look like if every goal is achieved?”. Euromaster Suisse SA commited to recycling 100% of its tires and be the initiator and promoter of a movement towards a better world, including Business & Arts.

Putting money (50%+ of its total marketing budget) and human resources into that project combining Business & Arts is for Euromaster Suisse SA a call to all the actors of the economic world to re-orient themselves so as not only to reduce the negative impact of their company on society but, above all, to create positive impacts thereon0.

What if a business decides to avoid using mainstream marketing tools & communication streams? … The company profits from this opportunity to fuel new energies and produce innovative ways to motivate society, people and PROGRESS forward! This is a fact.

Many companies try to keep their momentum investing in outsourced thinktanks, enabling spin offs or having an eye on start-ups who could bring value into their own model. Is this worth the efforts and costs? Their focus is rather concentric than systemic. Does it make sense? Companies miss perhaps one important point which is imbedded into the societal ecosystem.

The majority of business people consider money spent on cultural, social or environmental purposes as a kind of charitable program. WHY? We could answer with a question: would you believe in the link between investment in the societal good and a measurable return on investment (ROI) for the company involved?

Lettre ouverte au Président de la Répulique Française, Emmanuel Macron.
Une solution pour rétablir l’équilibre entre finance, Administration publique, économie et société est la défiscalisation de l’investissement sociétal de l’entreprise.

Are we too much focussed on value? Monetary value is at the centre of any valuation process for business or private purpose. Each and every single peace of land, property, material, or immaterial is worth an amount of money. What about VALUES? Is it worth to give up on transforming anything that surrounds us into monetary value? And integrate instead more values for the sake of more meaningfulness?

The Swiss Green Economy Symposium 2018 was the occasion to literally show with David Dimitri that sustainable profitability is a matter of balance. To focus on balancing societal and economic goals makes us all progress on the sustainability path.

Sustainably managing a business. How can positive effects on society and the environment through sustainable management be considered in a company value assessment? Finding the balance between Retrun on Investment (ROI), Return on Society (ROS) and Return on Environment (ROE) ist at stake.

Would that make sense to bring business and culture closer? If we look at the vision of the Dimitri World, we can easily state that culture is at the forefront of society transformation. The strong will of the Dimitri foundation is to shape a new long-term cooperation with a business partner. Society.Vision builds with the Dimitri World team the frame of the new organisation setup that will be housing a business for a strong and long partnership.