Functional economy. Towards a new economic model

The first decade of the 21st century will be marked by the search for a new business model, under the inescapable pressure of sustainable development requirements. Indeed, this global perspective poses two essential problems, which require new economic concepts to resolve.

Sustainable development now implies a constant concern for the use of resources mobilized to meet any market activity. This return to the roots of economics, which is by definition the art of managing scarcity, is not only salutary. It also raises a major difficulty, that of financing. Indeed, if it were simply a question of producing new offerings, the solution would lie in rewarding imagination. But the reality also concerns the stock of offers already placed. Upgrading them far exceeds solvency capacity. In the construction sector, for example, stock renewal is around 1% a year. This is of course an extreme case, but stock renewal rates are generally below 10%.

The second difficulty to overcome lies in another sustainable dimension that is not immediately apparent to economic players. Contributing to sustainable development means working for the long term. The aim is not to produce artifacts that last longer. The real issue is to realize that the end-user will play an essential role in how the product is used. The same product, depending on who uses it, will lead to contrasting environmental behaviors. By way of illustration, the same building's environmental performance will vary by 15% depending on its occupants. Sustainable development calls for closer cooperation between producers and users.

These two elements of the contemporary economic context challenge the traditional representation of the market economy, which is based on two assumptions:

• the offer is the subject of an instantaneous, i.e. one-off, transaction;

• on the supply side, the balance between use and consumption is a matter for the private sector, not the market.

The functional economy, on the other hand, takes the opposite approach.

Its first principle is to decouple the technical content of any offering from the end-user's intended use. What matters is not so much the means employed as the expected result. The advantage of this inversion of priorities is that it gets to the heart of the matter, i.e., it designates the desired end prior to any economic transaction. This does not mean neglecting the technical dimension of any artifact, but rather considering it only as an auxiliary to the use it helps to deliver. This prevalence of use, which some would describe as "service", should not be misunderstood. The functional economy is not immaterial; on the contrary,...