How to Prepare for the ESPR (with Baptiste Carrière-Pradal)

Below is a transcript of our discussion with Baptiste Carrière-Pradal, co-founder of 2B Policy.

We recorded this discussion as part of our Sustainable by Design podcast.

In this episode, we explore how furniture companies can prepare for the upcoming Ecodesign for Sustainable Products (ESPR).

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Greg: Few people know the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products (ESPR) as well as Baptiste Carrière-Pradal, co-founder of 2B Policy. In this episode, he breaks it down for us. Welcome to the show, Baptiste.

Baptiste: Thank you, Grégoire, for having me on your show. Very happy to be here today.

Greg: Very happy to have you as well. Could you start by introducing yourself and sharing maybe a bit about your background and experience, Baptiste?

Baptiste: Yes. Thank you, Grégoire. Very happy to do so. So I'm Baptiste Carrière-Pradal. I'm the co-founder of 2B Policy and I've been now working in sustainability for more than 20 years and working at the intersection of sustainability and legislation for the past 10 years and even more so in the last five years since I've launched 2B Policy. I've been working in this realm of interaction of sustainability and legislation having in mind that moving forward, one of the main drivers of sustainability will be legislations and particularly in the consumer good industry, we tend to see indeed a strong appetite, still today, we'll come back on that later, to be able to make sure that all what we buy is more sustainable and that includes definitely the furniture sector. And therefore, that's why being convinced that this is a key driver of sustainability in the future, I've been keen with my team to dive into the many sustainability installations which are being prepared, including, therefore, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation. But not only, also all of the ones on due diligence, on reporting requirement, on forced labor, on deforestation, all of these beautiful packets that the Commission is still very actively working on. Therefore, very happy today to be with you to give a bit more insight on the Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation.

Greg: Sounds like you're the man of the situation. That's great. And before we dive into the ESPR, I'm curious to know a bit more about 2B policy. What is it, and why did you create 2B Policy in the first place?

Baptiste: Yes, so 2B Policy is the company that I co-created with Bente Bauer in 2020, exactly at the very beginning of the COVID, actually.

Greg: Nice timing.

Baptiste: Ultimately, we're very happy we've done so. The beginning was indeed interesting. And the idea was starting from the perspective that as the European Commission will be regulating many sectors a lot in the future in the consumer goods sector, many of the sectors don't always have the proper information, the proper level of awareness to be able to engage properly with those policymakers. And to avoid that, we end up with legislation that will not serve the industry and will not contribute to the betterment of its footprint. We're very keen to be able to support better industries to participate in the conversation and definitely to have a say and to proactively engage to make sure that upcoming legislation will also serve the direction of travel regarding sustainability and that we can accompany them in the implementation of legislation to make sure that they can make the best of the legislation that is coming forward. Therefore, that's why we created this company. We have offices in Brussels, in Germany, and in the Netherlands. We have colleagues in Switzerland. And we definitely help all our customers to understand and anticipate the upcoming and existing EU legislation. And now we are even going broader with supporting legislation in North America and even in Asia. So that ultimately they can blend them into the operation and into their strategies. And that's what we do at 2B Policy.

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Greg: That's so interesting. And I'm glad that I found you because when we speak with furniture companies, there are a lot of questions that are very difficult to answer. People working in sustainability usually want to spend their time focusing on real reduction work. And sometimes legislation kind of goes into their way because they have to take care of both doing actual work and also doing compliance work, which can be hard. So very interesting. Which leads us to the ESPR today. So as a start, I would be curious to understand where the ESPR comes from and what its initial objectives were when it was started?

Baptiste: Definitely. And before doing so, I will just bounce on the statement that you made exactly like many people in the furniture industry and in other industries who want to concentrate on the reduction of their footprint. First it's better understanding, and then it's reduction. And that's virtually exactly what the ESPR, the Eco Design for Sustainable Product Regulation, wants to do. 

This one is not a regulation that is strictly meant to force you to potentially anticipate vague risk happening in your value chain or just to report. It has clearly a target to define what are the key axes that need to be activated in one given sector to reduce its overall footprint. 

So where does it come from? It's a long journey. It comes initially from other Ecodesign legislation that was implemented that many of you are very familiar with. And actually, even some furniture shops that also sell other types of so-called white products, washing machines, fridges, or others will know about them. So there was a first wave of legislation for some products, mainly electricity-consuming products, that was aiming and was thinking that if consumers are better informed, then they will make better choices. Then they will go for products with lesser emissions and lesser electricity consumption. And this will create a beautiful circle. And this is precisely what happened coming back to those white products where many of you have already seen going to do shopping the A to E type of ranking. There was an A to E type of ranking. And then for the more senior people in the audience, there was A+, A+++, so forth and so on. And then the Commission decided to revise that, killed off some things, and we came back to A, B, C, D, E. But the A of today is the much better A of the past because consumers were buying into it, indeed. There was this tool, a different link also to cost savings that could emerge from choosing a product A versus a product E. 

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But from there, the Commission evaluated that they have saved a huge amount of carbon emissions. And then they thought that this concept of having specific production requirements, equal design requirements, and information consumer requirements could be generalized to all consumer goods. 

Some years ago, the Commission was still calling that “the mother of all legislation”. Because they thought that compared to CSRD. CSRD, we can talk a lot about it, but it's only reporting. No big change will emerge out of just doing CSRD. So, in this particular case, it was seen as the most impactful legislation. And not only impactful, because again, it wants to change and to reduce the footprint, but it will directly potentially impact the way products are made. Because the logic is to be able to identify, again, the hotspots, the key elements, and the key step in the production or the life of a given product, a piece of furniture, a sofa, whatever you name it, and to directly require those steps to be better for a lesser footprint and ultimately for better information to consumers potentially. So out of all of this conversation, the Commission therefore decided that now we need a new regime to move away from what was in the past created for the white products to make one that will be ultimately applied for all consumer goods. This was one of the key cornerstones of the Green Deal. 

And so far, it's a piece of legislation, therefore, that has also been voted. That means that what we will talk about today, and that will be essential, is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation—it's already voted, it's already communicated, it's finalized. And now, it also has a list of priority products that need to have their own rules according to the Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation, the ESPR. Among them, there are textiles and furniture. I will use a couple of examples today from the textile sector, simply because it's the first sector where there is actually already active debate and conversation between the sector and the Commission regarding what those requirements should be.

But next in line is furniture that normally should have their own set of requirements in 2028. In the next step of the conversation, when I talk about the next steps of the requirements, I will use the terminology of the Commission, the so-called Delegated Act, because the ESPR is a regulation, so it's a law that is voted at the European level but that will be imposed automatically on the Common Market. And then, now that this law is passed, the Commission has to implement delegated acts. And the delegated acts will be different for each sector. We'll come back to that later. And the one, therefore, the delegated act of the furniture is expected in 2028. But to come back to it, the ESPR comes from many years ago, other Ecodesign legislations, which are now translated into a much more robust and much broader piece of legislation, which is the ESPR. And each sector will have a delegated act in a clear ambition to be able to reduce the footprint of a given sector.

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Greg: That's very exciting. Now, Baptiste, if we were to look at this regulation from both points of view, as a consumer or as a company producing furniture, could you explain what kind of changes the law will introduce?

Baptiste: Definitely. So, let's come back to the structure of the legislation. So the ESPR should be seen as a general menu. 

What does that mean? 

That means that the Commission has set a couple of principles that every sector will have to abide by moving forward. And then they've set a lot of parameters that every sector will be invited to check to be able to see which are the most meaningful parameters for the sector to activate. 

If we carry on in this concept, there will be two sets of requirements. 

There will be information requirements. Information requirements are exactly what we talked about with white products. For instance, displaying a performance ranking on the products. In other cases, for other sectors, now also in electronics, you can have also mandatory information regarding durability, regarding reparability, regarding anything. Here we talk about a corpus of information requirements, what players and furniture makers and sellers will have to communicate to their consumers. 

And then there will be performance requirement. Performance requirement, a requirement that furniture makers will have to bid by in order to put the product on the EU market. For example, you could have requirements that will go, for instance, on mandatory use of recycled content, mandatory requirements regarding a betterment process for recyclability, etc. The key thing to have in mind is that the ESPR is a generic framework that will set options that each sector will choose from in two categories: information requirement and performance requirement. That's the main structure. 

What we already know is that if your product category falls into the ESPR, which is virtually every consumer good except for very few exemptions. Once you are in the scope of the ESPR, then what is  sure is you will have a DPP, digital product passport, which is set. The format of it, we don't know, but the concept of it is not negotiable. Therefore there will be this digital product passport, which is to be seen as a digital repository of much information about the product that is meant to live with the product. Not something that the consumer can cut, remove, or whatever. That's something that will be within the product that will stay with the product. That's a must. 

We already know that another must, according to the regulation today, is disclosing substances of concern. There will be a lot of conversation on this point, but already normally, when you have a delegated act, the substance of concern is a must. 

And then there are a lot of “mays.” And that will depend on the conversation with every sector. If we come back on the furniture, if we start with the performance requirement, the sector will have to check if among the following information, which are the ones which make the most sense for them, is durability the key element, reparability, recyclability, introduction of recycled content, and a few others, so those will be checked and can they become performance requirement and each have a mandatory threshold that one needs to bid by to put product on the market and same will go for information requirement is a information to the consumer regarding the carbon footprint water footprint regarding a score a performance score so A to E going to be mandated and if yes in which format will there be requirements regarding a recyclability score or durability score or reparability score that should be implemented. So that means that from each of those key topics there will be conversation on whether there should be information to give to the consumer, whether there should be a requirement that makers will have to abide by before putting the product on the market, or whether there will be both a minimum threshold to put products on the market and information to consumers. 

Let me give you an example. One topic that is very strong in the textile sector, in the apparel sector, which is expected to also be significant for the furniture sector, is the use of recycled fibers. In other instances, here that means the Commission could very well say, “shall you use polyester, then in every new piece of furniture put on the market that contains polyester, within some years, you will be expected to use at least 20% of recycled polyester by 2030, then 30% by 2035, then 40% by 2040,” and to have a timeline with increments every five years to have a bigger uptake of recycled material. That could be the type of requirement. If we come back to recyclability, then there could be potentially mandatory requirements regarding the capacity of a product to be disassembled to prepare for better recycling at the end of life. And then there will be requirements regarding those parts. So that's the example of what can be used as, for instance, one of those requirements.

Greg: So if we pause here and try to, you know, recap what you just said, basically, the main conclusion is that the ESPR is some kind of work in progress in the sense that, as you said, the legislation has been voted on, and it will be implemented. But at the same time, the details are still to be discussed. When I speak with companies, I've heard people saying: “yeah, we're getting ready for the ESPR, we're investing, for example, in DPPs, or we're preparing in that way, etc.” Currently, it sounds like it's a risky bet. Some things are more uncertain or subject to discussion than others, I would say. Like, for example, you said there would be a DPP. That's the kind of thing you can anticipate. But there are other things like recyclability and this kind of thing where it's still an open debate.

Baptiste: Exactly. It's an open debate. And that's why, also looking at the timeline of this conversation, it's important first for the industry to ready itself to discuss with the Commission. It will be paramount for people to start to understand what those requirements should be and what the view of the industry will be once we position the threshold. Because those are extremely technical conversations that will take place. 

If you allow me to do a step on the textile sector, simply because again, it's the first sector where there are already those conversations happening. The sector has  already been engaging with the Commission for three or four years to be able to discuss the topic. And now that there is some strong decision that has to be made on one of the key topics of the sector, there is one big topic on durability. How long will a t-shirt last once bought, and how long can a consumer keep his t-shirt? Then the Commission has an ambition to, very likely, implement a minimum durability threshold. Then that means that the sector needs to agree on which are the key tests that need to validate whether a product is durable or not. Then, once you define the test, and you need to have the industry agree on those, you have to define the threshold. And here we tell you the threshold that you must meet in order to put a product on the market. Here that means that technically, so is it the stability to washing: how much a garment will shrink when you wash it? So in this particular case, this has to be defined. The sector has to have a strong position on it because if you have even three or four percent or five percent of your products which don't meet those requirements, technically you're not allowed to sell them on the EU market at all. So we talk about here a market access piece of legislation. Therefore, those debates are taking a lot of energy now from the industry because the industry needs to come together to agree on. As an industry, what position do we think should be maintained by the sector? Shall we say to the Commission: “have a requirement on durability, have a requirement on other elements”? There was a lot of conversation on recyclability as well for the fashion sector. Here the question was unfortunately, more on the topic of, in order to have a recycled garment, it's easier to recycle if it's monofiber.

We just started to say: can we work in this direction? Many players immediately say it's not realistic to ask the industry to have single fibers in every one of its products. That doesn't fly like that. Then there is too much counterwork required in terms of innovation, design, and creativity, which simply doesn’t work. So then there was a debate, and then there was conversation. “Maybe, let's forget recyclability because in our sector it doesn't play like that”. 

“Let's discuss, however, durability”. 

Because you cannot come to the Commission and say: “we don't want any requirements”. Therefore, that means that here there is a lot of debate and a lot of readiness that the industry needs to have from the furniture aspect. Which of those topics, which are part of the menu of the Commission, do we want to take? A bit like when you are with friends and you go to the restaurant, the first thing that one does is, “okay, what do we do? Do we start the main, main dessert? How do we structure our dinner?” That everybody's in sync. So that's a bit the same here, that the industry is to come and to say, “okay, what do we want here?” “Do we want durability, recycled content? No, durability, maybe not for us. Maybe it's recyclability, recycled content.” And to start to want to discuss those topics, to discuss on the threshold that you want to talk about. And that takes a lot of time. It's years of conversation. Very often there is no standard for everybody to apply. So, therefore, you have to start from scratch. Therefore, that means that it's good to think already to come back on your example of what the DPP could look like. But before that, there were so many convictions that the industry needs to build to be able to be in capacity and each of the players, more importantly, to have in order to be able to weigh in those conversations that are moving forward.

Greg: So you mentioned that there are some hot debates, and it's better if companies get involved. Is there a way for companies to get involved in this discussion at the European level? How does it work? Because it will sound cliché, but for me, the European regulations are all about big federations. Let's say I'm a head of sustainability at a furniture company, and I know my topic very well. Is there a way I could get involved personally, or should I get closer to the federation that represents my company? How does it work exactly?

Baptiste: Yes, usually there is a federation that is present. It's a link between an industry and the Commission. If tomorrow the Commission asks the federation just a blunt question, like “what do you think should be the capacity of the sector to agree on a 3%, 5%, 8%, 10% of mandatory polyester or cotton recycled in all the garments”? 

The federation will come back to the industry and ask its members, “Guys, what do you think should be the threshold? Should we even agree on that? And what's the dimension and the dynamic?” So the fact is that those conversations being so technical, federations are just here to facilitate a debate with their members. But that requires first the members to know what they want to say. Because ultimately the federation will be here to give their perspective, facilitated and harmonized, to the Commission. 

To come back to your point, if you are a sustainability director of one of those companies, first, you need to be yourself informed about what's on the menu choice. What are the different options and what you already like to see for your company, think is interesting, or what more research do you need to do to move forward? If you don't have a clear visibility on the durability and the quality of your garments, or if you don't have statistics about that and a clear perspective, how can you even start a conversation with the Commission when they will say, “okay, what about if we put this requirement regarding the fabric to avoid peeling of the fabric moving forward?” Just making things up. So, in this particular case, that means that you need to know what's on the menu, start to build your own mind, and be able then to engage with your federation or yourself to the Commission, depending on your own ambition. So that's one of the things. 

There is a so-called Ecodesign forum, which has been created, which is a place where many federations from many sectors are already present to keep being informed of the movement of the implementation for all the sector of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation. It's likely that the Furniture Federation is already represented here. But then after, it's all the work that the industry needs to do to be able to move forward. It's important to keep in mind, like we talk about the ABCDE of the white products, that once you are part of the ESPR, and especially since you are in this conversation at the very beginning, the ESPR doesn't go away. That it doesn't happen that later we'll say, “Okay, we've banned people from drinking alcohol and driving. It works so well. Actually, nobody does that anymore, so we can remove the regulations because now it's good”. It doesn't happen like that. So therefore, in this sense, once you start to have that legislation, you can expect that every five years or 10 years, they will be updated. But it's very important that the way they will be created at the beginning will start to define the direction of travel for the next 5-10 years, for the next decades. So it's very important to make it straight and right from the beginning to be able to ultimately have the best output possible for sustainability practitioners.

Greg: So if I sum up here, the main takeaway for me about what you said is as a sustainability professional, the best way you can help is to know your products, start understanding which directions you would like the legislation to take, and try to share this with the relevant people at the federation level, right?

Baptiste: Exactly. And having in mind that all of that will move away from simple statements. One thing that I remember a lot happening in the industry is to say, also in the fashion sector, there was a lot of conversation about if you want durable product, you cannot ask for recycled content. Because the more recycled content you bring, the more you compromise on the durability. And then the industry makes a statement to the Commission such as, “You have to be mindful of trade-offs”. So the question becomes, what are the trade-offs, and what are the thresholds? Be mindful of the trade-offs between including recycled content and the durability. But here, the question the industry should be able to answer is which trade-offs are the best ones to do. The commission doesn't have a plethora of technicians who are more aware of the furniture sector than the furniture sector itself. So the Commission will never be better at providing better answers than the industry. Therefore, when there will be those conversations, the industry needs to really go deep into those technicalities to be able to articulate properly, “Okay, in our sector, we believe that because we made a study for that, if we increase the recycled content in the product, maybe there will be more peeling on the surface of some products. But that's a valid trade-off because ultimately the footprint of the sector will be reduced.” I'm making that up just as an idea, but that's just to show a bit how it can play out and that people need to have this technical conversation. Because I come back on that, the key thing of the ESPR is that which is very different for the furniture sector and for many other sectors. It's intense technical debates. And the Commission expects the industry to come with big technical know-how. Otherwise, they will bring some experts in their case, and that will not please the industry. So it's very important for people to anticipate those debates as early as possible.

Greg: It reminds me of a process that's going on in France. So in France, we have something that is called the “Environmental labelling (EL)”. And it's a score that furniture and fashion brands will be able to display on their products to inform consumers about the environmental impact of their products. What's interesting is that the process was pretty much the same as what you described for the European Commission in the sense that there was a call for people to get involved, and we would be added to calls with the ADEME which leads the efforts for this score in France. And the calls were all about “how do you deal with end-of-life for your products”, for example. “Do you have stats to share” and this kind of thing. So it really sounds similar. 

Baptiste: It's logical that it sounds similar because if France is doing that for furniture and apparel, there is a reason. They just want to anticipate the ESPR. Actually, when I was discussing it with the environmental ministers and staff of the ministry in the past, they clearly said that they believe a lot in the ESPR regulation, but they want to make sure that it goes in the right direction. Hence, they believe that if they were to create their own regulations at the beginning and facilitate conversations in the industry, then their output will be the blueprint, if not the solution, taken by the Commission in the ESPR. They've done the same thing on the fashion score. They want to do the same on the furniture. And that's why the cadence mimics the one of the ESPR. They want to ultimately say, “Look, we have the score for the furniture. We have defined it with the industry”. And then they will lobby the Commission to take as much as possible of their own score. Also showing to which level it's important for people to be also very well aware of this French step moving forward.

Greg: This all makes sense now. Another question I had for you was about unfair competition, because it sounds like when you describe the ESPR, that it's going to be very positive, but it will imply some work on the furniture companies' side. I'm wondering how it's compatible with, like, fair competition with Asian manufacturers or, you know, companies that don't have to support the same constraints?

Baptiste: That's a very good question. The idea here is to say that the ESPR, it's a market access legislation. So, if you are headquarted in Europe, in Guangdong, in the US, wherever, then the law will apply the same for you. Any product entering the EU market will have to abide by this piece of legislation. So by default, it doesn't distort any competition because everybody, whatever their size, will have to meet the requirements. 

And I will go even further to say that, for instance, one big debate in the Apparel Delegated Act for the ESPR is the emotional durability. Emotional durability, which is meant to evaluate how long a consumer will keep a piece of garment because there is a bond between the person and the piece of garment, ultimately has morphed into a conversation about business models and, as also seen in the French conversation, has morphed into a way to fight ultra-fast fashion. Today, the brands belonging in this register are only Asian brands. So, it's  also becoming a protectionist tool. And therefore, in this case, there could be the same conversation happening in the ESPR for furniture, to which extent it could support either made in Europe or European brands. That's also part of the debates, which are happening completely in the open for the apparel ESPR. So, again, it will not in any way disturb competition and penalize European brands. It should do the opposite.

Greg: That's very reassuring. About the timeline of the ESPR, you told us that it's still a work in progress. It's like an open debate right now. Do we have any estimates about when the Delegated Act for the Furniture Industry will be ready?

Baptiste: So technically, according to the timeline communicated by the Commission, the Delegated Act for Furniture is meant to be ready by 2028. The first one that will be released will be the one on apparel. Also, I invite actors to see how the debate unfolds there because it will be material for them to prepare for their own debate. The one of apparel, the first one, is meant to be delivered in Q1-Q2, 2027. And one year after is the one on furniture.

Greg: Does it sound realistic to you?

Baptiste: No, it doesn't. The thing is that I already had a commissioner a few years ago that told me that the Delegated Act for Apparel will be delivered now, in summer 2025. We're far from it. We're two years away from it. And those are very complex conversations. So I do expect to have a gentle slide of the timeline. 

So will that be 2028-2029 for furniture? It's likely to potentially have a bit of a delay. But so far, what we can see is that still there is a steady development to go towards it. Some people in the audience may have heard about the omnibus or conversation happening regarding simplification of upcoming legislation. 

ESPR is not part of the omnibus. ESPR is voted, now it's sector-specific, it's moving forward, so there is no conversation simplifying it yet. So therefore, that's why this one we can expect that, yes, it will deliver. Maybe not exactly in the time expected, but it will deliver. And what will likely be delayed is the conversations themselves. So it will require even more time and energy from the sector to be able to interact with the Commission. 

Greg; It's so interesting that you highlight this because in recent months we have a few surprises. For example, I know the furniture industry some companies invested heavily in the EUDR, the regulation about deforestation. And then the regulation was postponed by a year. Now the details of the regulation are still being slightly adjusted. And then we got the omnibus. So it's essential that you highlight that. And I think it's very coherent with what you said earlier about the ESPR being the mother of, I think you said “the mother of all green lows”.

Baptiste: The mother of legislation, exactly.

Greg: So if you're working in sustainability in the industry, don't think that it could be canceled or delayed or changed. The details are not known, but it will happen and you need to get prepared. I think it's an important message to share here. Speaking of preparation, from what you said, a lot of details are still not known. Is there anything that brands can do right now to get prepared for the ESPR nonetheless?

Baptiste: Yes, because what we know is that it will be a lot around data, ultimately. It will be requiring many types of data, many types of information. So even if you want to ready yourself to be able to have this conversation with policymakers and within your peers already in the industry, that means that you need to structure your data better. You need to have a better perspective on your durability information, on your reparability information, on your bits of materials, on many other topics, to be able to have your own statistics, your own intel, and to already have that information communicating to each other. So that will definitely be already a good step to be able to have a better view on those elements. To start to know a bit also from your perspective, coming back on, many of your listeners may have already conducted pilot LCAs to be able to know the hotspots. Where are they? Which are the hotspots? Which are the easiest to be able to tackle? Which are the ones that are the most complex to move on from, and where are the ones where regulations should come? 

Therefore, you can also have a better understanding of the hotspots, the places where there is the biggest impact on the entire lifetime of your product, because that's what the Commission will do ultimately, to ready yourself. That's the first element. So gather all of your data, analyze it, dive into it, and play with it to be able to ready yourself for those pieces of legislation and start to decide how you want to be involved in the building of what will ultimately preside over the future of sustainability for the furniture sector for the many decades to come.

Greg: So, IT projects and basically getting involved in debates, that sounds great. 

Sometimes, when you don't work often with the European Commission or when you're just a regular human being, it's difficult to keep up with what's happening in Brussels. Do you have any tips to share, like what is the best way to keep up with what's happening in Brussels how to keep track of how the debates are making progress this kind of thing?

Baptiste: I will recommend two avenues. One avenue is to contact us to be able to answer any questions to inform people to tell them about how those decisions are being shaped and how to ready oneself in a much more straightforward way for all the legislations which are being debated. 

We've just launched our platform, 2B Policy Platform, where any player of the industry at a very competitive price can get intel and clearly updated information about all legislation, including sustainability legislation like the ESPR, to be able to know where it is at, how fast  it is moving forward, what the key debates happening today are, et cetera, et cetera. So you can either contact us or go to our platform.

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Greg: What’s the pricing like for this platform?

Baptiste: it's less than €3,000 per year so it's a few hundred per month to be able to have access to the platform, keeping in mind that indeed it's not something that people have big budgets to invest in, so you want to make this information available pre-digested so that sustainability practitioners can directly have the information they need pre-digested for them to be able to act upon it and to take decisions. 

Greg: Very clear. So if I recap, they can go to you if they have enough resources to do so and if they want to have a clear vision. If you are like working more in the smaller business, the platform makes a lot of sense, and a reaction to that is that I think this kind of information can really save you money. Like right now, I've been discussing with companies already, for example, investing in DPP tools, etc. And this makes me a little bit worried for them because, given the current state of the regulation, it looks like you're investing money in something that's not stable yet. And they could be actually, I think, saving money if they made the right decision at the right time. So I think it can be a huge competitive advantage.

Baptiste: You're completely right. That's something we get a lot also in the furniture element: people who went immediately associated ESPR with DPP. They went to find a DPP provider and immediately started to launch that. And I was asked by one of our customers who started to ask us: “Can you check how compliant is our DPP?” And I had to tell them, “But compliant with what?” There is no legislation yet for me to compare it to. So what are you after? Is your option technically viable as something else? But there is nothing to say about compliance. So you bought a compliant option where there is not yet a requirement to implement. 

So indeed, that would have saved them, in their case, unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of euros because very often those providers tend to go fast in saying, like, “You need to implement today”. Timelines that are floating around in the general media are very frequently mistaken. Many people confuse when the delegated act will be implemented with when you need to have the DPP. So it doesn't mean that you don't need to start to have better information, start to have better data, start to conduct more LCAs, to have a better understanding of your value chain, and to still act on those elements. But DPP will be a requirement, and there is still time to be able to implement it in a proper process.

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Greg: Sounds great. So again, your recommendation is to work on your data, invest time in debates, but don't go too far yet. It's not the right time. I have a last personal question to conclude this discussion, Baptiste. You co-founded 2B Policy, but I also read that your family owns a vineyard in the south of France, and I was curious to understand if there's any connection between the two.

Baptiste: There is connection in many ways. After all, if you want to be sustainable on one project, you are on the others. I tended to consider also working on the family and with the family on the family vineyard. It helps to have a better understanding of all the nature sides of our industries. So when you put cotton, when you put wool also in your piece of furniture, it's good to have a bit of an idea about how the farming process works. 

And also that always gives you an idea of time. I always used to say that between the moment that you look at a piece of land and you decide to plant something, and the moment you start to make a grape, and then a good grape, and then you bottle it, it's easily 10 years. That's one of the elements. So the same as changing this industry. It will not be done overnight. It will be a long process. And therefore, but at the same time, you need to succeed in each step of the process if in 10 years you want to be happy with the output.

Greg: I love the parallel between the two industries. And I have to say, of course, that the wine is organic. It's super natural. It's like there are no products inside. And last question, where can we buy the wine if we want to taste it?

Baptiste: It depends where people are, but on our website people can buy it. In England, there is Majestic. There are many places depending on where people are based.

Greg: Sounds great. Okay. Thank you so much for your insights, Baptiste. 

Baptiste: Very happy to have been of help to your listeners.

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