Global framework ・ BASIC

Our analytical framework

To what extent are the activities of a sector, an industry or a company socially and ecologically sustainable? To what extent are private or public “sustainable” initiatives up to the challenge? How can we steer an ecological and social transition at the level of an industry, a region or an economic sector?

Despite the boom in sustainable development and corporate social responsibility (CSR) over the last few decades, we have observed that these questions too often remain unanswered, beyond the communication of economic or institutional players.
At the same time, environmental indicators (climate, biodiversity, etc.) and social indicators (social and economic equality, well-being, etc.) are deteriorating, compromising the conditions for living well together in the short term.
In order to provide answers and enable systemic management of sustainability, we have developed an innovative, trans-disciplinary analytical framework that combines socio-economics and environmental sciences, and draws on the work of various researchers¹.
This framework postulates that the impacts of our production and consumption patterns are a function of:

product and service flows, from the origin of raw materials to end use,
business models and power relations,
the context of regulation and government intervention.

In our view, there can be no impact without flows, and even the most virtuous production models are unsustainable beyond certain quantities produced. Impacts also depend on the types of economic players involved and their economic logic (profitability objectives, value-creation models, etc.). Finally, public authorities can either promote or curb these impacts through laws and regulations (road safety, tobacco…) or through various forms of public spending (prevention, subsidies to certain economic players or individuals…), and as such are a key player in sustainability.

The global value chain approach

The starting point – and central focus – of our analytical framework is the concept of global value chains. This approach is used to analyze economic processes from a global scale down to the local level.

A global value chain is “an inter-organizational network built around a product, linking households, firms and states within the global economy” (Palpacuer and Balas, 2023²).

Unlike sustainability approaches that focus on specific products or companies (labels, certifications, CSR initiatives, etc.), looking at the question of economic, social and ecological sustainability in terms of global value chains enables us to take into account all the interactions between the different players and territories that link the production and consumption of products or services.

This systemic approach makes it easier to understand the causes of the impact of our production and consumption patterns on society and the environment, and to identify potential levers for mitigating or eliminating these impacts.

To analyze global value chains at the level of an industry, a region or a group of companies, we have developed several complementary models:

modeling of physical and monetary flows at different scales: international, national, territorial,
a model of price determination logic according to the type of player and product category,
modeling the distribution of economic value, costs and net profit margins along value chains.