Temps de lecture : 5 minutes
Written by Gwladys Lecomte
📌 Key points to remember
- Robustness ≠ performance : being robust means prioritizing margins of maneuver and the ability to absorb shocks, at the cost of less short-term optimization.
- The compromise is universal : from the airplane designed for turbulence to the tree in the wind, robustness is a law of life directly applicable to organizations.
- CSR as a result, not as a constraint : creating the conditions for robustness naturally brings forth responsible and sustainable practices.
- The fluctuating world calls for robustness : in the face of geopolitical, ecological, and economic instabilities, the most optimized organizations are often the most fragile.
Mercredi 17 juin, plus de 100 personnes se sont réunies pour le Positive Day 2026 au Reseda Café. Cette année, Positive Company® a fait le choix d'un thème à contre-courant de l'injonction permanente à la performance : la robustesse.
L'invité de la soirée, Olivier Hamant, chercheur en biologie végétale et directeur de l'Institut Michel Serres, est venu partager une lecture du vivant qui bouscule les modèles économiques classiques — et qui résonne directement avec les enjeux de transformation RSE des entreprises.
🌳 Robustness vs performance: two logics, one compromise
Dès l'ouverture de l'échange avec Charles-Henri Margnat, Olivier Hamant a posé une distinction claire. Selon lui, la performance se définit comme la somme de l'efficacité (atteindre son objectif) et de l'efficience (avec le moins de moyens possible). La robustesse, elle, est "la capacité d'un système à être stable et viable dans les fluctuations".
The word comes from Latin quercus robur, the oak: a tree stable in the wind, viable against frost and drought.
For Olivier Hamant, this compromise is universal: "When you are robust, it means you have margins of maneuver, that you are capable of absorbing shocks; and therefore you are mechanically less effective, less efficient."
🎥 Relive Olivier Hamant's complete intervention in video
🌱 What living beings teach us
Drawing on his expertise as a biologist, Olivier Hamant proposed a simple image: what if the company were a tree? Lots of redundancy (leaves, branches, roots), a deliberately imperfect energy yield, a growth that slows itself down as it progresses. According to him, "all of this is underperformance, but in service of robustness."
This biological perspective on robustness is not new, but it has gained traction since the 2000s, with a shift from a molecular approach (very performance-oriented) to a systemic approach to life, where robustness, rather than performance, comes first as soon as one observes a network as a whole.
🏭 From theory to business: two concrete examples
Interrogé sur l'application concrète de ce principe en entreprise, Olivier Hamant a pris l'exemple d'un avion conçu pour affronter les turbulences : redondance des systèmes (trois autopilotes sur trois circuits électriques distincts), fonctionnement à 50 % de ses capacités maximales. Selon lui, "l'avion est robuste avant d'être performant — alors que très souvent, on aurait tendance à dire l'inverse".
In the economic field, he mentioned the experiment conducted by Decathlon in Belgium, comparing production economy and functionality economy (rental, repair, sharing of objects) over three years. According to Olivier Hamant's remarks during this presentation, this shift would have allowed for a threefold reduction in costs for customers, a sixfold increase in the brand's results, and a reduction in carbon footprint by a factor between 15 and 30. These figures have not been independently verified by Positive Company®; they are reported as stated by the speaker.
🧭 CSR, sovereignty, and new narrative
On the issue of the CSR discourse, in a context of regulatory relaxation in Europe, Olivier Hamant proposed a change in perspective: "The fluctuating world means that the long term comes to the present." For him, CSR should no longer be the starting point of the discourse, but its consequence: "If we create conditions for robustness and that brings forth CSR, then that's great."
He also linked robustness and territorial sovereignty, relying on the example of agroecology as an avoided expense rather than an additional constraint.
L'échange s'est conclu sur une note tournée vers l'avenir : "Le monde qui vient est plus joyeux que le monde qu'on quitte." Une phrase qui a marqué de nombreux échanges informels tout au long de la soirée.
🏆 Positive Awards 2026: the winners of the year
The evening continued with the presentation of the Positive Awards 2026:
- Prix du Public : Collectif #TousDeMèche (Julie Quintard et Delphine Maussion)
- Meilleure progression Label : IDS Media (Véronique Durrieu et Chloé Lavieuville)
- Meilleure progression Scoring fournisseurs : USINA28 (Christophe Riguidel et Jean-Luc Normand), pour NaTran (Karina Doukari)
Félicitations à toutes les entreprises labellisées, utilisateurs de Scoring, partenaires et amis de Positive Company® présents ce soir-là.
🤝 Build, you too, a more robust organization
Beyond an evening of exchange, Positive Day 2026 reminded us of a shared conviction among all certified companies: CSR transformation is not a constraint, but a path to greater resilience and economic relevance.
Do you want to engage your company in this approach and have your CSR actions recognized?
❓ FAQ — Positive Day 2026
Positive Day is the annual event organized by Positive Company®, bringing together certified companies, users of Scoring by Positive®, partners, and stakeholders engaged in CSR. The 2026 edition took place on Wednesday, June 17 at Réséda Café in Paris, and gathered more than 100 participants.
Olivier Hamant is a researcher in plant biology and director of the Michel Serres Institute. He is the author of Antidote to the Cult of Performance (Gallimard). His work focuses in particular on the concept of robustness of living systems and its applications to human organizations.
Robustness is defined as "the ability of a system to be stable and viable in fluctuations." It opposes the logic of pure performance (maximum efficiency + effectiveness) by integrating margins of maneuver, redundancy, and heterogeneity; at the cost of less short-term optimization.
In a context of increasing geopolitical, ecological, and economic fluctuations, Olivier Hamant argues that the most performant companies (because they are the most optimized) are also the most fragile in the face of shocks. Robustness allows an organization to remain viable over time, even in an unstable environment.
The Positive Awards recognize each year companies or collectives distinguished by their CSR commitment. In 2026, three awards were given: the Public Prize, the Best Label Progress award, and the Best Supplier Scoring Progress award.
🔗 Sources
- Olivier Hamant, Antidote to the Cult of Performance, Gallimard, 2024
- Collective larobustesse.org
- Transcription of Olivier Hamant's intervention at Positive Day 2026, June 17, 2026, Paris