Family-owned Laboratoires Expanscience with headquarters in Paris, established in 1950, is a significant player in the pharmaceutical and skincare industry. The raw inputs for skincare products are mostly organic ingredients and harvesting these natural ingredients often degrades and depletes natural ecosystems.
A few years ago, CEO Jean-Paul Berthomé assumed a leadership role driven by a commitment to address a strategic challenge of developing an environmentally sustainable regenerative business model. A regenerative business model allows to generate economic value while preserving and restoring social and environmental resources. The plan’s objective is to progressively transform Expanscience’s business model to reduce negative externalities such as CO2 emissions, plastic waste, water pollution as well as to contribute to the regeneration of the environment and to societal well-being. The company aimed to achieve ambitious sustainability goals between 2030 and 2040.
Interestingly, the impACT strategic plan was drafted by more than 40 employees across all business functions and countries on a volunteer basis with the enthusiastic encouragement of Jean-Paul. An important ambivalent challenge is how to move the organization closer toward a regenerative business model while ensuring that the firm’s strategic vision could be accepted by stakeholders. Jean-Paul was convinced that leading a company with the principles of regenerative business models needed to go hand-in gloves with long-term profitability and value creation of the company.
In 2022, Expanscience Group included 14 subsidiaries and distributors in more than 100 countries. It had 1,161 employees worldwide, and €325 million ($352) in revenues.
WHY THIS CASE?
• Expanscience is a medium-sized company with huge ambitions to bring about impactful change in their industrial sector.
• The organizational change is grassroots, and it is supported by top management within the organization to gain maximum buy-in from all stakeholders.
• The company aims to balance financial performance while building a regenerative business model.
