Launched by six Lyon entrepreneurs a little over a year ago, Time for Planet today brings together 7,574 shareholders and has collected 1,247,832 euros.
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To achieve carbon neutrality, it will take education, sobriety, but also innovations, lists the climatologist, Jean Jouzel.
And who says “innovations” also says “investment” to help them flourish.
To bring their contribution to the building, six Lyon entrepreneurs have launched the citizen investment fund Time for the Planet, which already brings together more than 7,000 shareholders.
At the same time, Time for the Planet launched the quest for innovations with the ambition to find those that could have a global impact.
This can be a lead if you lack inspiration to choose the gift of a friend sensitive to ecology.
Buy him shares at Time for the Planet and thus make him one of the partners of this very young dedicated climate citizen investment fund.
Launched by six Lyon entrepreneurs a little over a year ago, Time For the Planet aims to unearth the most promising innovations on the fight against climate change and mobilize citizens' savings to turn them into businesses.
Today, the investment fund brings together 7,730 shareholders and has collected 1,259,000 euros collected.
And it is accelerating, assures Coline Debayle, one of the co-founders.
“Last March, over a month, we raised 5,000 euros with 50 associates, today these figures would be those of a bad day,” she says.
These are mainly individuals (you only need to be 18 years old and a euro in your pocket ...), “but also a few thousand companies, and we are also now discussing with large groups on much larger volumes of shares. important, ”adds Coline Debayle.
On its website, Time for the Planet is rolling out a very specific action plan until 2030. The next steps are to reach 10,000 associates and raise 5 million euros by the end of 2021. "Or ten million" , now aspires the entrepreneur.
Collecting money is one thing, it will also be about starting to invest it.
Time for the Planet has just launched a call for innovation and intends to select three firsts next year which should give rise to as many companies.
Offset the banks
It is one of the nerves of the war in the fight, says climatologist Jean Jouzel, former vice-president of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and one of the 7,574 shareholders.
"If we want to achieve stabilize the climate, there will be no other choice than to achieve carbon neutrality, and from 2050 to limit global warming below 1.5 ° C, he said on the 2nd. Last December, during the official launch of the selection of innovations by Time for the Planet.
This implies having reduced our emissions at least by two by 2030. And to achieve this, we will need education, sobriety [paying more attention to what we do] but also innovations and investments dedicated to them.
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A role that traditional financial players still play too little?
The carbon footprint of banks is regularly pinpointed by NGOs.
Friends of the Earth and Oxfam France assessed the greenhouse gas emissions from the financing and investment activities of the four main French banks, in 2018, at 2 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2018 That is 4.5 times the emissions of France this same year.
What to make of the savings of the French - more precisely of the way in which the banks reinvest it - the first item of CO2 emissions of a household.
"More and more individuals are now asking to know the use that is made of their savings and, when the response of bank branches is not appropriate, are looking for other solutions", observes Edouard Bouin, CEO Agir pour le climat, an association specializing in climate finance issues.
"Support disruptive innovations with a global impact"
Many initiatives now allow individuals to use their savings to support local projects *.
Time for the planet aims at another scale.
"Our goal is to support breakthrough innovations and ensure that they can be replicated everywhere in the world and quickly," says Coline Debayle.
And to "innovation", the investment fund gives a very broad definition.
"We are not only targeting high-tech projects," said Mehdi Coli, another co-founder, on the same 2 December.
It could just as easily be a social or societal innovation, or even a business model innovation.
The effectiveness of these solutions in reducing greenhouse gases will be what we look at first.
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Time for the Planet says it has already received around 100 applications.
“They first pass into the hands of a network of evaluators, shareholders that we are in the process of training,” explains Coline Debayle.
The innovations which pass this first filter will be scrutinized by a scientific committee made up of 15 personalities with various profiles.
"It will then remain to compare the ideas retained to market tests to ensure as much as possible that it works and, finally, to validate the proposals during the general meeting of shareholders", continues Coline Debayle.
Non-profitability of shares, double majority ...
Until then, the process is basically the same as in a classic investment fund.
This is the whole idea of the six co-founders: to be part of the capitalist economy as it is today, "but taking care to change the rules to avoid certain mistakes", indicates Coline Debayle.
The first is that of the non-profit nature of actions.
One euro invested in the fund will never allow the shareholder to earn more.
“We will of course seek to make a profit with the sums invested,” continues Coline Debayle.
But everything will be reinvested in new innovations.
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Time for the Planet also has a double majority system for decision-making.
"To that on the principle of" one euro, one vote ", we add a second, on the principle of" one entity, one vote "and which puts, this time, everyone on an equal footing, whatever the amount invested, continues the entrepreneur.
As there will always be more individuals than large groups among the shareholders, this system guarantees that the fund does not become anyone's toy and can be diverted from its initial ambition.
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Open source, a non-negotiable condition
At the heart of Time for the Planet's approach, there is also open source, a condition imposed on project leaders, that is to say the fact that their innovations can be copied by everyone.
“We will come up with a licensing system that will allow any entrepreneur in the world to copy the innovation and commercialize it.
And it will have the duty, in its turn, to put in open source the technical improvements which it could bring to the innovation ”.
Open source is a prerequisite, in the eyes of the six co-founders of Time for Planet, in the fight against global warming.
"We only have one generation to succeed, so we must ensure that the most relevant innovations can spread as quickly as possible on a global scale", continues Coline Debayle.
In a way, we are not trying to create businesses, but markets.
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To guarantee this principle, the investment fund plans to take the majority of shares in the companies created.
“But while usually, the innovator gradually loses control of his company as he raises funds, we want to do the opposite, assures Coline Debayle.
From the start, we will establish a pact providing for environmental objectives and return on investment.
As soon as they are filled, the project leader can take us out at any time.
“Ultimately, the six Lyonnais hope to collect one billion euros - between actions and returns on investment - and create 100 companies.
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* "It is, for example, the Foundation" Land of Links ", which buys agricultural land with donations from citizens to help peasants to set up organic, from Shared Energy which finances renewable energy projects. by citizens, or even by the financial cooperative La Nef, which allows citizens to invest in social and solidarity economy businesses ”, lists Edouard Bouin, CEO of Agir pour le climat, an association specializing in climate finance issues. Not to mention crowdfunding, which is booming, and which allows project leaders to ask their communities to help them.
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