"We're always walking a tightrope. We need to communicate our values without pushing people to buy immediately". A podcast recorded with Adrien Montagut-Romans, co-founder of Commown

Adrien Montagut-Romans is one of the four co-founders of the cooperative Commown. He is in charge of communications in the broadest sense and public affairs.

Commown offers long-term leasing of eco-designed electronic devices, with no purchase option. Commown is a cooperative, a société coopérative d'intérêts collectifs. And to hear Adrien tell it, it couldn't be any other way!

He explains how the digital industry generates catastrophic social, human and environmental costs. He explains why it's better to rent a device rather than buy refurbished. He sheds light on the points to bear in mind between the 3 types of alternatives to conventional purchase: refurbished purchase, rental with obligation to purchase and rental without obligation to purchase.

Like many highly committed professionals, he spends a good deal of his time (pro bono) trying to bring about structural change in the system. He does a lot of advocacy work, taking digital issues to government meetings.

We discuss how to communicate when you want to perfectly align your values with your marketing and communications.

Enjoy your listening!

List of references cited during the podcast

• Episode with Mathieu Jahnich: https://www.badsender.com/2023/05/29/podcast-mathieu-jahnich/
• Telecoop : https://telecoop.fr/
• Episode with Marion Graeffly from Telecoop : https://www.badsender.com/2022/11/07/podcast-sobriete-marketing-marion-graeffly-telecoop/
• Fairphone: https://www.fairphone.com/fr/
• Stop programmed obsolescence: https://www.halteobsolescence.org/
• GreenIT : https://www.greenit.fr/
• ARCEP : https://www.arcep.fr/
• ADEME : https://www.ademe.fr/
• Article on dumbphones: https://escapethecity.life/remplacer-smartphone-dumbphone-basique
• Unicorn Alliance: https://www.licoornes.coop/
• Collectif Fairtec : https://fairtec.io/fr/
• Loom : https://www.loom.fr
• Collective in climate mode : https://www.enmodeclimat.fr/
• Circular Economy Act: https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/loi-anti-gaspillage-economie-circulaire
• Swapfiets : https://swapfiets.fr/
• GreenFlex : https://www.greenflex.com/

This recording is available on all podcast platforms

Text transcript of the podcast recorded with Adrien Montagut-Romans, co-founder of Commown

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Hello Adrien.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
Hello Marion.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Two people I've already interviewed on this podcast recommended that I interview you. They are Marion Graeffly, director of Telecoop and Mathieu Janhich, teacher-researcher in responsible communication. Thank you, Adrien, for taking time out of your day to do this interview. To help us understand why it's interesting to interview Commown, could you start by saying who you are and what fills your days today?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
I'm one of the four co-founders of the Commown cooperative. I'm in charge of communications in the broadest sense of the word, as well as public affairs. Basically, I'm not trained as a communicator at all. I have a PhD in organic chemistry, so it's totally unrelated. Except that my degree has taught me how to popularize subjects and communicate them widely. So, on a day-to-day basis, I'll be working with the communications team to try and implement a communications strategy across our various channels. I work on writing content for our website. And, with management, I work on developing new strategies associated with the company. Then there's all the business management that the four of us do with my three partners. And then, what's been keeping me very busy lately, is advocacy work, where I go to government meetings to design the sustainability index that will replace the reparability index. Digital consultation meetings, and so on. That's a big part of my work. We try to put forward radical proposals in these spheres of influence to counterbalance the sector's inertia and lack of ambition. But we're not alone. There are other players who are present with us, who share the same values. Fairphone has joined the dance on the subject. We have Halte à l'Obsolescence Programme (HOP), Green IT, and so on. There are players other than us who bring these things to these meetings.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Okay. Didn't you introduce Commown?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
Commown is a long-term rental program, with no purchase option, for eco-designed electronic devices. In other words, we start from the principle that programmed obsolescence and the dynamics of over-consumption are at the root of the infernal renewal of devices. The environmental and social cost of electronics and digital technology is truly enormous. If you've been listening the previous podcast with Marion GraefflyI'm sure she's mentioned it. So our postulate is that to get out of this vicious circle, you have to get out of sales. Because when you sell products on a market that's saturated, it's necessarily in your economic interest for people to buy. And so, regardless of the fact that people have working appliances, we're going to push them to buy appliances. So we're going to implement innovation strategies that serve no purpose, marketing strategies that aren't necessarily any more useful for generating profit. And so, to get away from all that, we're renting without an option to buy. So we offer the Fairphone, for example, as a subscription system where the customer will have a system for dealing with breakdowns, breakages, user assistance, the possibility of installing open source software to free themselves from the GAFAMs, and so on. The aim is to really make devices last as long as possible, and it's in our economic interest to do so. And what we have in common with TeleCoop is that we're also a cooperative society with collective interests. This means that in our model, all stakeholders can be members and have a say in the cooperative's governance, finances, profit margins, salary levels, etc. This preserves the cooperative's identity and its values. This ensures that the interests of customers are protected. They have voting rights at the General Meeting. They can have access to activity reports and balance sheets, and we take customer interests into account right from the design stage of our pricing packages.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
This is a podcast about sobriety and marketing, but before we talk about marketing, can you sum up the problem with digital technology today? I get the impression that people are confused: is it better to buy refurbished or rented?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
That's a very good question. The problem with digital today is that we produce too much. That's the basic problem. We produce too many devices. Every time we produce a device, we incur enormous environmental costs, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, fresh water consumption and raw materials consumption. We've all heard about the problems of critical metals and rare earths. There are also supply and diplomatic issues associated with the production of electronic products. As we saw during the COVID crisis, there were supply disruptions for semiconductors. This brought a whole number of industrial sectors to a halt, including the automotive sector, which also depends on them. So, the digital and electronics industry is not at all resilient and is not at all designed to cope with the systemic crises that will arise from a climate point of view, since it is globalized and has territorial specificities. Thailand is mainly a hard disk producer. Taiwan is the leading producer of semi-conductors. So, if there are climatic disasters in these countries, it jeopardizes the industry as a whole. As it happens, these countries are located in zones that are going to become somewhat technical in the years to come. So it's a particularly polluting industry that contributes to climate change. It's an industry with catastrophic social and human costs. For example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, there are gold and coltan mines operated by armed militias in which children work. It's an industry that's really on an ultra-linear mode where, at the end of the day, waste electronic and electrical equipment is trafficked. As a result, many electronic products end up in open dumps in developing countries. In Ghana, for example, there's a huge landfill where people burn computers in the open air to try and recover the copper. And finally, we don't know how to recycle electronic devices at all today. This is a real issue. In other words, we're not able to recover all the raw materials that make up the devices we have in circulation. And that's very damaging. When we take all these problems into account, we know that around 80% of environmental issues are related to the production phase. The more we produce, the greater the impact of digital technology. Now, to answer the question "Is it better to buy refurbished or is it better to rent?" As an individual, it's clear that buying a refurbished product is, in a way, giving it a second life. On the other hand, when you buy a reconditioned product, you don't question the source of the problem. In the sense that if we didn't produce so many appliances, we wouldn't have appliances to recondition. In an ideal world, appliances would have to last for 20 years and never be changed. And so, in this ideal world, there would be no products to recondition. If there are products to be reconditioned, it means we're producing too many appliances. Now, renting isn't necessarily any better. Because if we're on rental models with the promise of always having the latest model available, we're going to be on renewal cycles that are just as similar to those induced by sales. If we're dealing with rental players who, after an initial rental cycle, sell the equipment in the refurbished sector, it's the same thing. We'll also be in this vicious circle of fleet renewal. So it really depends on what we mean by the word "rental", and who's doing it.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
So, behind this, it's the lifespan of the smartphone or computer that's important. I imagine that the Commown model is a long-term rental with no purchase option. This means that you don't have to buy the device, and you won't be asked to upgrade every two months.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
Absolutely. Our tariff offers are designed to be degressive over five years, to encourage people to keep the same model. If they ever change model after the end of the one-year commitment, they lose the pricing advantage of seniority. We're really here to support them with the same device for as long as possible. And then, when the equipment comes back to us, if it's damaged, we repair it and put it back into a rental loop. And if they're beyond repair, we use them as a source of spare parts to repair other appliances.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
What should be the minimum lifespan of a smartphone or computer?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
What's interesting is that European regulations are starting to arrive in the smartphone sector, requiring updates to be maintained for five years after the last unit sold. This will push manufacturers to maintain their devices for a minimum of seven years. So there are some interesting things happening. Now, frankly, I'm often asked this question: what would be the lifespan for the production and consumption of electronic devices to be sustainable? Some people say 10 years. ARCEP and ADEME have published studies to assess how we could achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and how, in the digital sector, we could reach this objective. And for them, this means doubling or tripling the lifespan of current devices, stabilizing fleets, extending lifespan and stopping production. That's not how ADEME puts it, but we have to stop overproducing. We're over-equipped, which means that when we talk about stabilizing the fleet, we have to stop thinking that we're all going to have a tablet, a computer, a smartphone, a connected robot, a connected vacuum cleaner, something that's useless.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Are you a B2C or B2B customer?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
We're both. We launched thanks to B2C in 2018. We had a rough go of it with private customers, so to speak. Then, gradually, we felt strong enough to propose offers for pros. Today, in the professional sector, we mainly target VSEs and SMEs. We're starting to get into the ETI segment. And then we see companies of all types who come to us. We have associations, consultancies / CSR, pharmaceutical companies. In short, we get a lot of different things. We have corporate fleets of up to 200 machines.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
In B2C, what type of population?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
Some people come to us for different reasons, but the majority are activists who see our model as a way of radically changing their approach to digital consumption. They are also people who are sensitive to the cooperative aspect, meaning that they see in our governance and bylaws a real added value. And then there are people who come to us primarily for the quality of our service. Some people come to us because it's the first time they've had a smartphone. It's a bit soul-crushing when they come to us, because it would have been better if they'd stayed without a smartphone. But hey, we're here to support them if need be.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Today, it's a bit complicated to live without a smartphone. Because as soon as you want to buy something online, sign up for various activities for your children, pay your taxes, it's all done with a phone.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
Yes, of course. But as long as it can be done via a computer, we can continue to live without a smartphone. I didn't have a smartphone before I started the cooperative. I took a fairphone from my cooperative six months after launching the coop. I took it with a heavy heart.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
I read an article about dumbphones. I guess you know what they are. Can you just clarify for those listening what the difference is between a fairphone and a dumbphone?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
Basically, a dumbphone is a Nokia3310 or an old brick phone. There's a trend to redevelop these phones. We're listening to these trends. When there's a phone of this type that's sufficiently reliable and fits in with our values, i.e. a minimum of disassembly and possibly open source, we'll include it in our offerings. One we're keeping a close eye on is Mudita, which should be arriving soon. They're in beta testing. It's really a phone with a removable battery, based on open source, that only embeds essential functionalities like calling, texting, a little MP3, a little meditation application, because the creator likes meditation. That's all there is to it. For the rest, in an improved version, they plan to add a GPS tool and also the possibility of sharing its connection with your computer, i.e. the phone can be used as a modem to share codes like smartphones.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Dumbphones don't have to be without an Internet connection. It's not the Nokia 3310. It can be, but there are other versions of the dumbphone where they say "We're going to concentrate on essential needs", so music for some and GPS, for example. It's really about limiting usage and time spent on your phone.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
It's often manufacturers who are working on freeing themselves from the dynamics of the attention economy to regain time. Because we're becoming addicted to our smartphones. Application designers are very good at co-opting our attention.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
It's a podcast about marketing. What is marketing for a company like Commown? How do you see it?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
We're always walking a fine line. We have to communicate our values without pushing people to buy immediately. Most people have devices that work when they see the communication we send them. A large proportion of our messages on social networks, when we highlight a new offer, will be associated with a message along the lines of "Be careful, the best smartphone is the one you already have in your pocket." We're very careful about the messages we send out. In fact, we don't overplay our values. Our values are really quite radical. We're very committed. We're also very transparent about our sources of improvement. When we communicate, we do it with sincerity and I think people perceive that. So when people hear about us, we have quite an impact. And we think that this impact pays off over time. Between the time someone hears about us and the time they actually need a smartphone, they're all the more likely to remember our cooperative if the first impression we made on them was a good one. In the beginning, we did a lot of B2C trade shows to meet people. Now we're trying to focus our efforts on trade shows. We're starting to make a name for ourselves in the activist world, because we're teaming up with different structures. We're part of the Alliance des licoornes with two o's. We're also part of the Fairtech collective. We're also part of the Fairtech collective. We've forged quite a few links in that world. And what we're seeing today is that the primary source of acquisition for us is word of mouth. For individuals, it's clearly word of mouth. And that's quite gratifying and shows that we're heading in the right direction.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
On your website, next to the "Rent a fairphone" button, there's another "Do I need it?" button. I've answered the questions and, no, I don't need it because my smartphone is still working. So I have a question: if we rely on word of mouth and don't encourage people to buy, how can we survive economically?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
We're on a long-term leasing model, which means we're not dependent on monthly sales. We have monthly payments that arrive over time.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Yes, but you have to reach a certain number of subscriptions to be reassured, I guess?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
Yes, that's right. Of course, we're still in a growth phase. We haven't yet found the model that allows us to be economically viable with economic decline. That would be great, but we don't have it yet. So yes, we're in a growth phase. We would have hoped to reach economic viability a little sooner. Right now, we're hoping to turn the corner in the next few quarters. Of course, we're not on the model of a start-up that's going to spend two million on a marketing campaign for its launch, while promising its investors an astronomical return on capital in more than five years' time. We've developed much more slowly than any other start-up in this field. That's for sure. We don't have the same com budgets.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
As a manager, you're willing to grow over the longer term. You don't have the reflexes of today's managers who say to themselves, "We're going to activate all the marketing levers in the world to achieve economic viability as quickly as possible." There's a long-term system that has to be acceptable to today's managers.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
That's it. We're a lot more patient perhaps. After that, we experimented with things. We've done Facebook ads, we've done ads through Google Ads and so on. We tried things out to understand how different levers could work. We tried different customer acquisition tools to see what worked. Let's say we said to ourselves, "Let's do an affiliation campaign, let's test it out". If we observe that it sends us customers who all tend to change their device to get to us, we'll probably question the campaign. Today, the people who come to us probably already have devices, and these devices are probably working or at the end of their life. We know that some customers come to us saying, "I've made it this far, but my phone just gave out. As a result, they're often in a hurry to be delivered. Now, it's true that we don't systematically try to dissuade customers from coming to us. On the other hand, if they ask us questions and we realize that they have a device that works well, we tend to question their decision to come to us immediately.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
You're talking about your relationship with your customers. On the Telecoop podcast, Marion Graeffly told us that to convince and raise obstacles, at some point you have to go through the voice, i.e. customer service. Where some companies do everything they can to limit customer service, precisely because it costs money. Marion said that for her, it was extremely important. How busy is your customer service department at Commown?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
We do have a very high level of customer service, even if we don't have a direct line to call at the moment. In other words, service is at the heart of our model. We have to be hyper-reactive, so we've set up a whole range of tools that enable customers to contact us via a computer or their smartphone. Basically, you have to send a written message. Why did we choose the written rather than the spoken word? Because we're dealing with a huge number of highly technical questions. Like solving a problem, which sometimes involves several people over the course of a week. And in such cases, it's good to keep a record. If there's a file transfer, for example, the person needs to be able to have the previous information. So it's important to have this traceability system. However, we have two levels of offer. A premium offer where the customer can be called back in the event of a problem. There's an "I'd like to be called" button, in which case the customer is called. Maybe in a few years' time, we'll be offering a direct line to be called, but that's not yet the case. What we do do, however, is systematically call all our customers before the machine is shipped. The call lasts between 7 and 15 minutes. It's the moment when the customer feels welcomed into the cooperative, and when we clarify with them any questions they may have about our offer, the level of service, the appliance, whether they've fully understood the type of appliance they've chosen, etc. Sometimes, at this point, we'll even ask them to come and talk to us. Sometimes, at this point, we advise him to change his appliance, or even dissuade him from coming to us straight away. It's really at the time of the pre-delivery call that we work to establish a bond with the person.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Ok. I was asked to support Commown when I saw that I didn't need to rent a smartphone yet. You refer to a donation system. I find that interesting and quite clever. Is this an important source of income for you? If I remember correctly, it's a donation that will enable me to take action in a few months' time.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
That's right, it's not quite a gift. It's a deferred consumption voucher. It's a voucher for later. Basically, if someone doesn't need an appliance right away, but is convinced that they're going to come to us because our cooperative is so cool, they can, when they visit our website, take out a voucher worth anything from €20 to €500, for when they really need to subscribe to an offer. This voucher is not nominative, has no expiry date and can be activated three months after purchase. Why 3 months? Because we didn't want to fall into the "I've got a voucher, I'll buy it right away" trap. After that, if someone has a problem with their phone two and a half months down the line, we're not going to say "Wait, you'll have to wait another 15 days". This gives a tiny financial advantage. For example, at €20, you'll get a €23 voucher, and at €500, you might get a €550 voucher. Afterwards, it's a bit like if the customer signs up for the offer, he or she will pay the deposit. And then, all these monthly payments will be progressively deducted. They will be reset to zero according to the voucher they have subscribed to.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
You said earlier that in B2B, you tend to work with VSEs and SMEs, and that you're trying to move on to ETIs. Why is that? Is it easier to convince small companies than big ones?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
We don't even have to convince small companies, because they come straight to us. When I say "small", I mean companies with up to 50 or 60 employees. The companies where we have fleets of 200 machines, these are the companies we've met, even if some of them have also come to us. After that, we tried to talk to ETIs and major accounts, but of course, decision-making processes take much longer. Sometimes, it's companies that already have their own internalized fleet management processes, and there are companies that already do that very well. So the added value of our model, in terms of sustainability, isn't necessarily relevant. And then, sometimes, it's companies that have framework contracts with players and we can't align ourselves economically. Sometimes it's just not possible. But on the whole, we're particularly competitive on our computer offers, according to the feedback we've had, from an economic point of view. For smartphones, it's a little more complicated because there are often specific contracts. For example, you get the fleet of devices, but you also get SIM cards. In fact, the company doesn't pay for the terminals or the smartphones, but it does have a premium subscription with Orange, where they overcharge for subscriptions. We don't have that model yet. One day, we'll be able to do similar things with Telecoop, without necessarily getting into the dynamics of overcharging. We'll be able to offer a complete cooperative package, but we're not there yet.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
On the B2C side, you said that the population was mainly activists, so they're fairly aware of these issues. My question is, how do we get everyone on board? Does it involve popularizing messages? I saw on your site that you have a lot of texts.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
I don't know if we can get everyone on board. Behind the question "How do we get everyone on board?", I hear the fact that for us to change the world, we need everyone to become aware and we need everyone to do their bit. It's a vision with which I'm not necessarily in phase. In the sense that it tends too much to put the responsibility on individuals and not on states and companies. When, in fact, it's not that complicated. To get everyone on board, you need binding measures, you need bans, you need to supervise companies. I had the Hummingbird side of things. It was a period of my commitment. It's more what I advocate today. It's important that people who are aware of the issues align their consumption with their values and concerns. When you come across someone who is committed and fulfilled in their commitment, it makes other people want to do the same. So it's important to keep spreading this commitment in society. But if we think we can solve the problems we're facing by waiting for the whole population to wake up, we're not going to succeed. This strategy should have been put in place in the 70s, perhaps even just after the war. But that's not at all the path we've chosen. Today, we're at a dead end. We're going to be hit by tarpaulins and walls. We're already starting to. And we're not going to solve the problem by waiting for people to wake up gradually.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
I imagine that's why you're involved in advocacy and why you have all these meetings with the government. It's precisely to try and change things structurally.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
Yes. We try to act at all levels. We offer a solution for individuals and companies. But we're well aware that this solution won't necessarily be for everyone. And we're well aware that it's not thanks to our cooperative that we're going to save the world or save electronics. On the other hand, the cooperative does give us the legitimacy to express ourselves in spheres of influence. As soon as we're asked for our opinion, we give it without any scruples and propose radical measures, such as banning advertising on new electronic products. Now that would be a common-sense measure. The disappearance of digital screens from public spaces, beyond the environmental impact, would above all be a symbolic measure. There's a lot of stuff like that that we keep putting on the table. It doesn't find much echo in today's government, but we continue to advocate these things. Because it's through measures of this kind, which question the way we produce, that we could eventually get out of this rut. Today, public policies are putting in place things to question the way we consume. We're going to wake consumers up, for example, by introducing a sustainability index, a little line underneath advertising campaigns that says "eat fruit every day, get moving, ride a bike, energy is our future...". But this kind of phrase is useless. We're not there anymore. We just need to stop advertising SUVs, stop advertising plane tickets. In short, we've got to stop doing stuff. And right now, governments aren't up to the task.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
What I see in truly committed companies is that time is always taken out of volunteer mode to change things in a more systemic way. I didn't interview Loom, but I did talk to Guillaume Declair, one of Loom's founders. They've set up a collective called "en mode climat", and their aim is to change the laws of fast fashion. I have the impression that in companies with a virtuous model and a real commitment, part of their time is always taken up with changing things in a systemic way, and therefore, at some point, being closer to the government. Would you like to say something about that?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
In fact, we never imagined doing this from the start. We didn't even know it was possible to do what we do. But we very quickly met a number of associations, and it was these associations who co-opted us into government meetings. Because they found themselves powerless and at loggerheads with the industry, within which they had no allies. We launched in January 2018. But by September 2018, we were starting to take part in the thinking behind the Circular Economy Act. But we hadn't planned that. But as soon as we had this opportunity, we saw that there was a huge amount to be done on it. And that's where we think we can have a bigger impact. Why aren't we getting paid to do this? (laughs) On the other hand, GAFAM's public affairs managers obviously have a major economic interest in being at these meetings to slow down regulations as much as possible. Because, in a way, it calls into question their business model. They have an economic interest in being at these meetings. For us, the fact that there's a sustainability index coming up has absolutely no economic interest for our co-op. Yes, it will help to educate people on the subject, but we gain nothing and it costs us a fortune.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Why did I stress the "really" earlier? It's because I have the impression that certain companies sometimes surf on virtuous models, but at the same time, will push consumption despite everything. I wonder if there isn't some greenwashing behind it. My question is, what do you do when you're a company with real values to make a name for yourself without resorting to greenwashing?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
I know exactly what you mean, because we get a lot of questions. We have partners in the cooperative world who forward us prospecting emails from companies that are somewhat in our sector. And that makes us wonder. Up until now, we've done very few pushes, we've done very little to go out and find them. And when we learn that partner companies may be approached by people who are not at all from the SSE sector, for example, we have to be very careful. We hope that when the time comes for a company to renew its fleet, it will really think of us. How do you avoid being accused of greenwashing? You have to take your time. I'm a very, very, very, very, very, very critical person myself, and I have a tendency to accuse people of greenwashing if I don't have sufficient evidence quickly. So, I need to be able, on a website, with just a few clicks, to have proof of commitment and transparency. That's my tropism, but personally, when I arrive on a site, my first reflex is to look for the company's legal status. If the company is a classic SAS or something else, I already know what type of business I'm dealing with. And then, has the company put its articles of association online? Can we access its legal status? We try to be as transparent as possible. There's a whole range of evidence on our site, but it's going to ask people to read it, it's going to ask people to look for it. For example, we made a poster for our B2C trade shows. We put on the poster "guaranteed without bullshit" in the sense of guaranteed without greenwashing. The idea is to appeal to people, so that they come and ask us questions. Because you have to be able to talk to people to convince them. Because, of course, there's so much greenwashing going on at the moment that we could be drowned.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
I've also noticed that when you really want to get your values across, you have to use longer texts on websites. In traditional marketing, you're told to get straight to the point, so you have to keep your texts short.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
"Come to us and save the world". And that's it.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
This means longer, sourced texts and so on. But it also requires consumers to take more time to read. We're really into something other than speed at all costs.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
We could try humor too. That wasn't included in the poster proposals. We sometimes have team-sum websites, but I'd imagined a poster reading "Discover the carbon-neutral smartphone that plants trees and is bio-sourced. Just to really challenge, to say "What's this total..." Anyway, second degree might work too, but it's perhaps a little more direct.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Do you have a carbon footprint?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
We haven't done it yet. We could do it. What we'd like to do is go further. That would be a multi-criteria life-cycle analysis. But we're holding back because we don't yet have reliable enough data. Among the four co-founders, we have fairly scientific profiles and we like to be a bit solid when we do things. And today, we'd have the impression that on a multi-criteria LCA, we'd still be a little too wet-fingered in the sense that we haven't yet reached the end of operation of the first fleet of aircraft we have in circulation. And so, as such, we don't know what added value in terms of lifespan our model offers versus buying a Fairphone, for example. Although we're starting to get some ideas. As for the carbon footprint, yes, we could define the carbon footprint for a given year. But in fact, our carbon footprint would keep increasing every year, because we're still in a growth phase, and so we'll be putting more and more devices into circulation.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Yes, your carbon footprint with scopes 1, 2 and 3 is likely to increase. But there's a scope 4, if I'm not mistaken, which also allows you to calculate the carbon emissions saved by renting from Commown rather than buying in the traditional way.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
Yes, if we can get up to SCOP3, that would be great. I haven't heard anything about this scope 4 on avoided carbon emissions. But we'll get to that, because it's the kind of evidence that everyone is asking for, our investors in particular. It's just that for the moment, we don't feel we have reliable enough data.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
It might add an argument to the website.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
Yes, that's right.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Are there any other companies that inspire you in their approach that you'd like to see in a podcast like this?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
On marketing, you've already mentioned Loom. There's a bike rental company that we thought was pretty cool. I didn't dig any further. I think it's a classic capitalist company. I forget their name, it's Swapfiets I think. They have a com to explain what the economy of functionality and rental is. Their com is really exemplary in terms of pedagogy on the subject.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Okay, I'll check it out. And I have one last question. Do you have the impression that companies that remain in SAS, or at least that have a capital-based model, can't be sincere in their approach?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
No. I think the people who create SASs or work in SASs are sincere. But that's not enough, because these are companies that are potentially going to be bought out. The people at GreenFlex were very committed, very sincere. But Total decided overnight to buy GreenFlex. That posed a problem. Because it's the company's greenwashing arm.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
What if managers don't want to be bought out and want to achieve controlled growth over the long term?

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
Yes, but that doesn't prevent everything. You're not immune to life accidents, you're not immune to this kind of thing. What's more, you're in control of your capital remuneration policies, and there's no right of scrutiny from the outside. In a strategy of sobriety, at some point you really have to question this notion of capital enrichment, because that's really the sinews of war. We're in an economy that exploits people, exploits nature and exploits resources to generate profits that accumulate in a handful of ultra-rich people. And this model of wealth extraction is not viable, it's not sustainable. It creates sources of inequality. So it's not sustainable at all. I'm profoundly anti-capitalist. Philosophically, even if we are forced to operate within a capitalist model. Today, to promote our economic development, we use banks, so we make loans. We go to banks that are close to our values, such as Crédit Coopératif and Nef. But loans are nothing more or less than a way of earning money. We're not completely outside the system either, otherwise I wouldn't be talking to you. But we still need to question the foundations of our economic models, because otherwise, I don't think we'll solve the problems.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
I understand. The cooperative is a crazy custody system. It keeps the managers in line. Thank you Adrien for your time.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
With pleasure.

Marion Duchatelet - Badsender
Have a nice day. See you soon.

Adrien Montagut-Romans - Commown
See you soon. See you soon.