The 20th
anniversary
edition
March 14 & 15, 2025
at UNESCO • Paris

Founded by Louise Guerre in 1985, the Serda Archimag group specializes in the organization of memory and knowledge within companies and supports public and private organizations in all their information management projects. For the past four years, the group has been deploying the permaenterprise model, inspired by permaculture and conceptualized by Sylvain Breuzard. In practice, this means developing the company with a focus on caring for people, protecting the planet, setting boundaries, and redistributing wealth fairly. This approach boosts both employee engagement and company results.

Permaculture places special emphasis on resource regeneration. This led you to ask the question: "How can we regenerate the energy of employees?" How did you approach this?

Louise Guerre: Yes, among the most valuable resources for a company are its human resources! In fact, this is one of our five key development challenges. A working group of seven people studied this topic, meeting once a month for an hour. Employees were asked about what "drains their energy and what regenerates it."

It turned out that the main factors lowering employees' energy were: lack of listening from managers or colleagues, workload (mental, emotional), poor posture while working from home, too many meetings, and managing difficult clients.

We then implemented feedback training for everyone and published a practical guide on proper telecommuting posture. We also reactivated previous training sessions on effective meeting organization and client relationship management.

Additionally, we organized spaces for open discussions about what "recharges our energy." The opinions on this were more varied, but common themes emerged: telecommuting, good internal communication, team "fiesta" days where everyone gathers together, kindness, team challenges... all made possible by a caring and engaged management style.

How did employees respond to the deployment of the permaenterprise model? Did they participate?

Of course, every individual was involved in at least one working group. It wasn't so much the collaborative aspect that changed, as we were already practicing it a lot, but there was a newfound enthusiasm, a real commitment from employees. They had always been highly involved in the company, but becoming a permaenterprise has a multiplier effect. For example, when a consultant presents our new offer on responsible dematerialization and its framework to a client, it’s not just about presenting a new offer. It’s about working for the planet. And that changes everything! The permaenterprise is a powerful lever.

The permaenterprise model has also made our recruitment efforts easier. When dealing with jobs in high demand or scarce fields, it’s important to stand out. Candidates feel it—they understand the overarching meaning of our approach and see that it’s a deep-rooted action.

What impact has the model had on your economic development?

Our journey toward becoming a permaenterprise has boosted our development by leading us to rethink some of our offerings. Specializing in digital transition projects to reduce paper usage, we created a new responsible dematerialization framework, establishing 21 indicators that allow our clients to calculate the carbon footprint of their future system based on the type of documents they wish to digitize, along with processes to improve their scores. IT Directors are thrilled, as are CSR managers at our client organizations.

To raise awareness among our clients and prospects, encourage them to use this framework, and provide them with measurement tools, we launched “the responsible dematerialization day” three years ago. This initiative has helped raise our profile and increase our revenue. Initially, it seemed a bit out of reach, but today our clients, especially publishers, understand that reducing carbon footprints and CSR are becoming increasingly important in both public and private tenders. In a way, we’ve influenced them to make their solutions more digitally sustainable. This shows that the permaenterprise project encourages foresight and gives us a competitive edge.

The permaenterprise model also led us to strengthen our change management support for the implementation of our responsible dematerialization framework. All of this has boosted our results and allowed us to share part of the profits with our employees through our profit-sharing agreement, as well as with the associations we support, such as the Réseau Étincelle… We’re also launching a new skills-based volunteering program where each employee can donate one day a year to an association of their choice. This is another way to share our wealth!

Our wish for 2025? That this approach inspires a majority of companies to embark on the same journey, so that our future is livable.

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