to analyse
The French show VivaTech begins its climate transition, but forgets ecology
The Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 16, 2022. © Léopold Picot
Text by: Léopold Picot Follow
8 mins
VivaTech, the exhibition dedicated to innovation and start-ups, ends this Saturday June 18, 2022, the only day it is open to the general public.
For the past three days, it was reserved for professionals, students and investors.
The opportunity to take stock after taking the ecological temperature of the sector.
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Like all fairs and major exhibitions, the consideration of ecological issues at VivaTech is not immediately obvious.
Under the wave of torrid heat from Paris which arrives gently from Spain, one enters through hinged doors into the immense metallic Hall 1.
An oasis of freshness then opens up, a perfectly air-conditioned place, where you stroll among the latest essential innovations for our common future: tooth-cleaning dentures, barista robots, the single-seat flying seat or even the virtual world. to discuss with his banker.
In the 21st century, no innovations without #robots, and there are plenty of them in the living room!
🤖 Some play the barista... pic.twitter.com/DTIhCNuEPA
— Leopold Picot (@leopold_picot) June 16, 2022
However, when questioned, the participants in the show claim to be green, at least in their personal lives.
Compost, cycling, showering rather than bathing… The now traditional recommendations that shift the responsibility of the system onto citizens are well integrated - as a reminder, only 25% of water consumption in France is attributable to individuals.
The questioning of the very principle of excessive consumption is less so.
Consuming while decarbonizing?
Part of the show thus seems stuck ten years back, based on technologies worthy of the “conso-future” pages of popular science magazines.
Flying cars or connected cars try to attract attention in the face of leisure robots, virtual reality helmets allow you to play tennis with your banker at the top of a volcano (not far!), all this in a surge of
goodies
of all kinds.
The BNP Paribas bank stand at VivaTech, singled out for its support for the fossil fuel industry, gave pride of place to metavers.
To escape once you've been locked in an air conditioner all summer?
© Leopold Picot
Most of the companies in the show, even those that claim to be green, promote a way of life that may have to be challenged.
Benjamin, for example, promotes a company that transforms thermal cars into electric cars: “
The vehicle was not originally designed to receive batteries, so the range is 100 kilometers.
We will mainly target the second car of everyman to take the children to school, to get the baguette.
»
This is not to cast opprobrium on the idea itself: decarbonizing a vehicle is rather a good idea, even if batteries also rely on limited, albeit more abundant, resources.
It is more a question of asking why the public authorities do not invest massively in public transport, light carbon-free transport and the restoration of local services, precisely to prevent "
everyman
" from using or even buying a second car, certainly electric, to get your bread or bring your children to school?
« Amish VS Entrepreneurs: should innovation be deprogrammed?
»
Let's be honest: part of the show is starting to take notice of the coming climate crisis.
The idea of circular economy, with the highlighting of companies like Back Market (which will nevertheless have to make efforts in terms of carbon-free delivery), is quite present, many of the materials used are now recyclable, innovations to fight against global warming are springing up from all sides, although it remains to be seen which ones will survive the test of being put on the market.
A conference on the circular economy at Vivatech on June 16, 2022 with Camille Richard, CSR manager of Back Market.
© Leopold Picot
The first question is not so much whether tech is becoming aware of the climate issue.
Little by little, the fact imposes itself.
It is rather the way to manage to limit it which questions.
This was also the focus of a fascinating debate organized by Tech Trash on the Orange stand, “
Amish VS Entrepreneurs
: should innovation be deprogrammed?
".
A deliberately provocative reference to Emmanuel Macron's remarks on opponents of 5G, and a welcome step back in a sector that is struggling to take it.
To sum up, Irénée Régnauld, researcher and president of the collective Le Mouton Numérique, considers that for ecology, as in order to limit fake news or tech monopolies, it is necessary to regulate and insert democracy into companies: "
in the tech, like everywhere else, there is conflict, you have to accept the conflict, you have to set limits and rules.
»
On the side of Gilles Babinet, co-president of the National Digital Council, the concern comes from the monopolies, but also from the education of consumers in technologies.
Marked by the opposition to 5G, he advances: “
To different degrees, I believe in this war of chapel between technophiles and technophobes.
It's a problem of education, of technological culture, the fact that we understand these technologies, and that they themselves are not always in this top-down logic.
An argument rejected by Irénée Régnauld.
Live from #VivaTech for @RFI, the show for technological innovations and start-ups: "Amish VS entrepreneurs, the big debate", hosted by the founders of @TechTrashFr pic.twitter.com/8YrvwTdN9e
— Leopold Picot (@leopold_picot) June 16, 2022
If the debate on the question of the place of democracy in digital companies and the major orientations decided by the States (6G is already in preparation without consultation of the citizens) was fascinating, it ended up going far beyond the ecological question posed by TechTrash.
The question of the rebound effect of innovation
has barely
been addressed.
The ecological crisis is not only climatic
Behind this debate on the orientation to be given in the face of the climate crisis hides a second question: where have the other ecological crises gone?
The water crisis, scarce resources, the biodiversity crisis, the acidification of waters, the disruption of the biochemical cycles of nitrogen and phosphorus… All of this seems far removed from the concerns of a majority of participants. at Viva Tech.
Of course, innovation is not intended to solve all these crises, but it is not intended to contribute to aggravating them.
The Centre-Val de Loire region stand at Vivatech, June 16, 2022. © Léopold Picot
All is not black, fortunately: certain green shoots reassure on the potential of technology in the fight for ecology.
Kumulus, for example, which has just created a dew generator, to create water from dry matter, and which could benefit, on its own scale, certain communities particularly exposed to desertification.
To preserve biodiversity, a German company, Dryad, has developed a tiny, inexpensive sensor that alone protects 5 hectares.
Its co-founder, Cartsen Brinkschulte, says in this regard: "
We only develop products when both goals are achieved, when we can make a profit, but also when we have an impact on the environment, a positive contribution to society and nature.
And I think it's a very symbiotic combination: helping nature can be very beneficial.
»
Cartsen Brinkschulte, co-founder of Dryad, holds in his hand the small device for early detection of forest fires at VivaTech, June 16, 2022. © Léopold Picot
“Deeptech”, fundamental research applied to everyday life, is also gradually taking its place at VivaTech.
Evidenced by the stands of Air Liquide, the CNRS, or Inria (the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology).
More serious, less flashy - and therefore less attractive - it gives hope.
Like the startup Airthium, a band of young engineers who are developing a heat pump that could well compensate for the problem of the variability of renewable energies.
It's all about paradigm, story.
For the moment, high-tech is overvalued in the media, in the political and societal imagination.
The image of the providential man, like Elon Musk, animates the tech world.
Maybe technology will eventually save us all, by capturing carbon from the atmosphere, perfectly recycling everything we use.
In the meantime, scientists are rather skeptical, and the majority calls for sobriety, even decrease.
And it starts with a question that every engineer working on an innovation should ask themselves: “For what?
".
►
To read also: Bees, sentinels of biodiversity, in great danger
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