When Profit Regains Meaning: Entrepreneurship in Service of Life, Towards a Regenerative and Committed Economy – Where Everyone Wins

For Committed Entrepreneurship?

Looking Back on Over 30 Years in the Field of Impact-Driven Business and Business Creation

Thirty years have passed since my first steps into the complex world of committed entrepreneurship. Thirty years of bringing projects to life where others saw structural dependency on subsidies, where lack of profitability seemed inevitable. And yet: making impact profitable, disruption viable, cooperation desirable... it’s possible. Perhaps it started as a strong belief that fueled me, but today it is a proven knowledge, validated daily in the field.
This proven know-how has evolved into a model. It is now shared through platforms like the Geneva Forum and the Geneva Foundation for the Future, where agents of subtle yet decisive transformation come together. And what we experience there leads me to say that doing business differently is not only desirable—it has become strategic.

A Gentle Yet Radical Revolution

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Nature never imposes. It infuses. Over time, it shapes the most efficient forms of organization. For 3.5 billion years, it has shown its capacity to evolve continually—never going bankrupt.
Today’s entrepreneurship, if it wants to weather the storm, must draw inspiration from that resilience. To be deeply rooted and yet flexible in form. The world is changing, and in this transformation, the entrepreneur is no longer just a market builder, but an ecosystem craftsman. A quiet agent of deep transition, weaving new meaningful connections between humans and their environment.
Choosing to undertake for the common good is now both a bold and smart act. It does not reject profit, but restores its meaning. It shifts from exploitation to partnership, from short-term gains to long-term fertility. And in that shift, everyone wins.

Genesis of a New Kind of Entrepreneur

Inspired by life itself, this new type of entrepreneur emerging in recent years doesn’t need to force cooperation—it understands that interdependence is a strength, and certainly not a weakness to be looked down upon! They study the forest to guide their alliances, the cell in the human body to structure their organization, the ecosystem to imagine their business model and growth.
Their organization is not fixed: it is totipotent, like certain cells that can specialize without losing their integrity. They cultivate simplicity without losing depth. They are both many and one. In truth, they are not on the fringes of the economy—they are the emergence of the new economy that will replace the old one.

The Foundational Dimensions of Committed Entrepreneurship

Committed entrepreneurship spreads like a mycorrhizal network: each fiber carries meaning, purpose, responsibility. It’s no longer about growing for growth’s sake, but about creating to connect, repair, and strengthen.
It embraces social responsibility, is rooted in environmental sustainability, and grounded in a clear business ethic. It dares social innovation while upholding inclusion, diversity, and justice as its pillars.
It seeks to share value, not capture it. It strengthens communities, contributes to health, education, fair employment, and the eradication of poverty. It is transparent, collaborative, and inherently circular.
It leverages technology, but places it in service of good. It works to reduce inequality, care for its people, and reinforce collective resilience. Each dimension is not a constraint but an opportunity to build more justly, more fruitfully, more powerfully.

Virtuous Circles and Fertile Hybridization

When a business meets a nonprofit, it’s not a culture clash—it’s often an alchemy. One brings strategic agility, the other deep purpose. Together, they create hybrid forms: new kinds of cooperatives, social incubators, solidarity finance networks supporting the boldest projects.
Yes, an NGO can franchise. Yes, an association can innovate. Yes, a citizen project can become a business—not by losing its soul, but by expanding it further.

An Entrepreneurial Dynamic Within Nonprofits? Yes—And It’s Necessary.

The nonprofit world is a reservoir of initiatives, intuition, and meaning. But to last, to have impact, it also needs entrepreneurial energy.
Breaking down silos, daring to innovate, testing business models without betraying the mission: it’s possible.
And when a nonprofit team starts thinking like a startup—without losing its compass or its heart—it becomes irresistible. What we’ve seen on the ground, in dozens of organizations, is that a collective project rooted in impact becomes stronger, more credible, more contagious.

Hard Values, Soft Values: Toward a Craft of Meaning

In this new economy, rigor does not oppose gentleness. Quite the contrary. It takes surgical precision to build a viable impact model, and boundless empathy to truly serve the living.
The committed entrepreneurs I know are demanding—with themselves, with their vision. They cultivate lifelong learning, redefine success by real usefulness, not just growth.
They learn from life not to dominate, but to interact. They know that power is not seized—it is shared. That ambition is beautiful when rooted in service. That complexity is not an enemy, but a web in which to inscribe their actions.

The Fruitfulness of Science and Ecology to Reinvent the Economy

Nature is a tireless researcher. It has invented sustainable agricultural systems, efficient energy flows, and waste-free cycles. Agroecology, clean energy, geothermal power, biomimicry are not green utopias—they are fields of high-potential entrepreneurship.
By drawing inspiration from life, we develop regenerative technologies. We reinvent usage, reduce impact, and restore what we have damaged. The circular economy is no longer theory—it is practice, jobs, wealth.

What People Stand to Gain

People gain stable, dignified, meaningful jobs. They gain access to essential goods and services. They gain autonomy, security, and recognition.
But above all, they regain something invaluable: the capacity to act. To feel like an agent in their life, their future, their community. That is priceless.

An Economy Inspired by Life to Create Greater Wealth

The companies of tomorrow will be complex adaptive systems. They breathe, interact, adjust. They are intelligent and sensory: they listen, feel, respond.
They engage in continuous learning—not just to optimize processes, but to refine their place within the ecosystem. This kind of organizational learning becomes the true competitive advantage. Sustainable profits arise from a right relationship with the world.

A Humble Yet Vital Commitment

It’s not about saving the world. It’s about finding our rightful place within it. Meeting complexity with humility. With the simple joy of contributing.
Letting go is not giving up. It’s trusting what is greater than oneself: evolution, life. But staying the course—toward meaning, care, and service.
Daring to do business the way we tend to living systems. With patience, attention, and love. Knowing that true wealth is not what we accumulate, but what we regenerate.