Business Networks, Clusters, and Competitiveness Poles
Many initiatives have been undertaken across the territory to promote the structuring of the sector. This structuring is a priority to meet the challenges of developing eco-enterprises.
Indeed, it has proven necessary to bring together all actors in the sector to create a strong dynamic, ensure their cohesion, foster cooperation, and disseminate best practices.
These networks allow companies to benefit from their experience and help territories find their specificities to stand out, especially internationally.
The main objective is simple: to reach, through grouping, a sufficient critical size to develop the activity of eco-enterprises.
From information sharing to regulatory monitoring, from disseminating calls for tenders to guiding entrepreneurs toward the right aid programs, eco-enterprise networks facilitate connections between different actors and foster collaborative projects.
These networks also bridge the gap between the often difficult-to-collect needs of SMEs and public authorities and raise awareness of the measures put in place for them, which are often little known by their intended recipients.
Many territories have set up eco-enterprise networks. These may be supported by Chambers of Commerce and Industry, as is the case in the Champagne-Ardenne, Lorraine, Midi-Pyrénées, Alsace regions, or the Paris Île-de-France CCI. Other networks are initiated by territorial actors such as general councils, public development agencies (EPA), or communities of municipalities, such as the Sénart eco-activities club or the Val-de-Marne eco-actors network. In this context, the Water sector of Réunion is currently developing, supported by the Economic Development Agency. These networks generally do not have their own legal status.
Other networks exist as associations that group all interested actors in sector development: mainly companies but also research laboratories, territorial public actors, sometimes schools and training centers. Examples include Bretagne Éco-Entreprises, APPEL in the Rhône-Alpes region, CD2E in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, EA Éco-Entreprises in the PACA region, as well as the eco-industries cluster of Poitou-Charentes, the Environment cluster of Limousin, Vivant et la Ville, and Novagreen.
Some of these groupings specialize by sector, such as SWELIA, based in Midi-Pyrénées, which brings together companies in the water sector. Other groupings focus on a development lever for the company:
– export with the Ademe International Club or CAFI, a business club for eco-enterprises interested in the Indian market;
– innovation with DURAPOLE or E2IA (eco-enterprises for innovation in Auvergne);
– commercial development with the proECO² Group, gathering 44 companies.
Experience shows that these networks have a direct impact on the dynamism of the territories where they are located.
These territorial initiatives have been strengthened by the creation of the écotech network, composed of 14 competitiveness clusters specialized in the environment, including, among others, Advancity, Axelera, Hydreos, DREAM, the Water cluster, Pôle Mer PACA, TEAM², and Trimatec.
In addition to these territorial initiatives, professional associations in the sector contribute to structuring the sector, even by regionalizing themselves (FEDEREC, UPGE, UPDS, SER, Syntec, FIMEA, GIAc, GIMELEC).
Among all these initiatives contributing to the sector’s influence, we have chosen to highlight several recent initiatives to show the actors’ assumption of responsibility.
France Water Team, 4 networks combining their expertise to export: the associations Swelia (Languedoc Roussillon), WSM (Midi-Pyrénées), and Éa Éco-Entreprises (PACA), all members of the EAU Competitiveness Cluster, have combined their skills and networks under the France Water Team banner. This grouping aims to collaborate on international development actions for companies in the water sector, in coherence with the Cluster, by creating both an international “brand” and a joint offer to support companies in their networks with exports, thereby enhancing the visibility of French actors. In this partnership, each network contributes to the program and brings its skills to develop “mutualizable” actions: training, collective missions, monitoring. In the same collaborative spirit, the Lorraine eco-enterprise network has set up the Lorraine wind power cluster.
The Coordination, Experimentation, and Application Centers for Ecological Engineering (CCEAGE). UPGE is setting up this national-scale initiative to contribute to structuring the ecological engineering sub-sector (through support, setup, and monitoring of collaborative projects), enabling the testing, modeling, and dissemination of new methods, tools, or materials necessary for sector development. The main objective is to facilitate business growth and multiply their development capacity by connecting various ecological engineering actors (training organizations, scientific networks, and companies). UPGE has chosen to rely on regional actor networks, initially in five pilot regions: Brittany, Lorraine, Centre, PACA, and the Tarn department.
Another recent initiative to pool financial and human resources of various structures representing companies is the partnership between Optics Valley, a software specialist, and Durapole, an environmental cluster. This partnership concretely promotes software publishers in the environmental domain. It expands possible partnerships by better representing different links of a value chain (technology providers, integrators, service providers, end users). It also offers an opportunity to broaden the range of services offered to companies of both networks.