Companies urged to reinvent themselves amid coronavirus crisis: Armor refocuses production to make 3D visors for healthcare professionals' masks
By Hubert de Boisredon, director of the Armor company
The current pandemic is causing an unprecedented economic crisis. But beyond this tragedy, another deeper, ecological catastrophe threatens the inhabitants of our Earth. May this pandemic push us to reinvent the way we manage our lives, our relationships and the world.
While the SARS-COV2 conoravirus is raging, with its share of deaths that remind us of our human fragility, the economy is also suffering the full impact of the closure of businesses and the fall in demand. The loss of global economic activity is currently 50%, with an abrupt halt in entire sectors such as the automobile industry, air transport and tourism. A third of private sector employees in France are on partial unemployment. In the United States, already 20 million Americans are unemployed and some are already predicting that this figure could double. In India, the lockdown is leading to the exodus of millions of workers onto the roads, on foot, hundreds of kilometers from home. How can we not also think of the impact of this global lockdown on all microentrepreneurs who, having no social protection, are losing everything. Economists predict a decline of up to -10% in global GDP in 2020. Global stock markets have collapsed by -40% and this is probably only the beginning of a long-term downward cycle. Unlike the stock market crash of 1929 or the subprime crisis of 2008, this pandemic is bringing the productive apparatus to a standstill and thus destroying the heart of the real economy.
This unprecedented catastrophe on a global scale has another particularity. The sociologist Bruno Latour explains very well that it is a major economic catastrophe following a major health catastrophe, these two catastrophes being encapsulated in an even more significant underlying catastrophe that has not yet been treated with adequate means. I am talking about the ecological catastrophe linked to climate chaos and the destruction of life, and with it the terrible consequences for hundreds of millions of poor people in the world. The challenge is nevertheless enormous: we must halve our CO2 emissions by 2030 (in just 10 years!) to hope to be able to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 at the latest.
Faced with this situation, two attitudes are possible: one that would consist of hoping for the end of the coronavirus pandemic to start again "with renewed vigor" as before, with the added desire to catch up with the observed slowdown, or one that would consider another possible future for the economy. Some have already taken a position for the first path, such as Donald Trump who, unlike the European Union, has just revised downwards the CO2 emissions targets set by Barack Obama for the automobile sector. His objective is to relaunch the production of large engines to stimulate oil production and the American economy after the current health crisis. But for us Christians or men and women of good will who want to listen to the signs of the times, is there not another path to welcome?
We can hope to find a solution to the health crisis sooner or later. Vaccines will probably be invented. But other viruses are to be feared in the years to come, as long as we have not treated the problem at its source and therefore stopped destroying biodiversity. We are entering a new global cycle, for which we must write new rules, design new objectives, new imaginaries. It is therefore a question of adapting ourselves in depth and operating a major reorientation of the economy. Are we going to continue to aim for ever stronger growth in order to increase profits and stock prices ever more? Are we going to continue to send tons of flowers and fruits by plane all over the world because they arrive cheaper on the markets than those of our local producers? Are we going to cover our agricultural land with photovoltaic panels imported from China, when there are more suitable alternatives? Are we going to continue to manufacture huge luxury yachts with a fuel consumption of up to 80 tons per day? Will we find ourselves back in queues at supermarkets outside cities after experiencing the benefits of small local businesses?
The crisis we are experiencing provides ideas for a more humane, supportive and fraternal economy. We see the benefits of short circuits: the importance of the local farmer and market gardener who feed us, and of the small businesses that bring life to the neighborhoods. We appreciate the calm of the cities, the better air quality and value more ecological means of transport: walking, cycling, electric buses. We realize that the supply of food, pharmaceutical and basic necessities depends on local manufacturing. Sometimes devalued professions have shown that they are essential: caregivers, drivers, cashiers, craftsmen, production workers ... Without them, the economy does not work. There is no doubt that there is an invitation to revalue these very essential professions.
The "how to do it" is not known. It has to be invented, drawing inspiration from the solutions that are emerging here and there: manufacturers have been able to show how quickly they can adapt their factories to produce the masks, visors, gels, respirators, gowns or gloves that are sorely lacking. Let's continue this effort, so that confinement is a chrysalis, the first phase of a metamorphosis. Let's believe that an exciting future lies ahead of us. Perhaps this terrible health ordeal opens up a new path to welcome in ourselves first, in a new relationship with the world, to invent new ways of acting in our individual and collective behaviors for the economy.
No responses yet