Hard to miss it. In recent months, Camille Etienne seems almost endowed with the gift of ubiquity. TV sets, bookstores, festivals, AG de Total and even… company seminars. “The intervention lasted an hour and a half, but we didn’t realize it. It happened really quickly!” Enthuses Agathe Fouache, communications manager for Morning. Seven months ago, the employees of this group specializing in coworking spaces and office layout, a subsidiary of Nexity, a listed multinational, received the environmental activist as part of an internal seminar. At the conclusion of the two days and one night of activity designed to strengthen ties between employees, Morning wanted to meet “an inspiring speaker”, according to the communication manager. “We wanted to end with something that makes sense, so that we come out of it enriched beyond just a nice moment,” she continues. Morning was not looking for a lambda speaker: the coworking brand wanted to talk about ecology, and was looking for a personality embodying the fight against global warming.
Politicians, sports champions or starred chefs are no longer the only ones sought after to lead private seminars. Among companies in search of meaning, researchers specializing in the environment and the fight against climate change are now a coveted commodity. With a new trend lately: activists are almost as popular as Jean-Marc Jancovici or François Gemenne, researchers and engineers used to frequenting the stages of amphitheatres. But the underside of these exchanges between the private world and activists is opaque: if only for a question of display, the figures of the environmental movement are reluctant to display their paid collaborations with companies. The amounts of these conferences, very variable, would range between 3,000 and 7,000 euros, according to professionals in the sector. A way of financing their green projects, but which can also make tick among these activists who are often close to anti-capitalist circles.
A “large part” of the work
The trend has been growing since the emergence of the climate marches in 2018. “Conferences related to the environment are more and more in demand every month, confirms Noé Bolzinger, co-founder of the conference agency Orators. Around 30 40% of the requests we receive are related to environmental issues.” This growth is confirmed by the Simone and Nelson agency. “This is one of the three most requested themes, underlines Clémence Falewée, its founder. In recent years, the environmental theme has represented around 20% of our turnover”. Speakers also feel this increase. Benjamin de Molliens, one of the co-founders of the “Plastic Odyssey” initiative – a project aimed at reducing plastic pollution in the ocean -, who defines himself as “lecturer and adventurer”, has multiplied the interventions in recent months . “In 2022, I hosted around thirty paid conferences. I have done the same since the start of the year and I think I will reach around fifty by next January, he calculates. become a big part of my job.”
In companies, the reason for this attraction is the result of a double pressure. That of employees who are increasingly sensitive to the climate issue, first of all. Then, that of a more general awareness of the need to display one’s efforts in this area: the subject of social, societal and environmental responsibility has become an issue in many French companies. “Ecology, in particular on the side of activism, is rising more and more in society, and companies are pushed to talk about it to meet the expectations of their employees”, analyzes Benjamin de Molliens. Subject to the injunctions of investors, banks and the market, groups must now show that they are making efforts to show their “green paw”.
Commissions ranging from 15 to 30% for agencies
Speakers and agencies have therefore been engulfed in this new appetite for businesses. For Benjamin de Molliens, the remuneration provided is not negligible: between 500 and 1500 euros for online conferences of one to two hours, and between 2000 and 4000 euros for conferences carried out in the flesh. “These are informal grids, but which are practiced by almost everyone, he continues. Some speakers are paid much more. It all depends on notoriety.” Solicited directly by the Nice section of the Center for Young Business Leaders (CJD) a few weeks ago, committed writer and director Cyril Dion – contacted by L’Express, the director did not respond to our messages, evoking a schedule constraint – was for example paid “a few thousand euros” the evening, and paid for his train journey and his hotel. “For an event of this magnitude, bringing together 350 people, we had an all-inclusive budget – including speaker – of 20,000 to 25,000 euros. The sum we paid to receive it did not seem at all extravagant to us”, believes Sylvain Caucheteux, who participated in the organization of the event.
Prices also fluctuate depending on how speakers are solicited. With an agency, the costs of intermediaries – which represent according to the agencies between 15 and 30% of the initial sum – increase the price of an intervention. In exchange, the company offers its client a list of speakers, but also organizes the intervention of the latter. On the Morning side, the conference hosted by Camille Etienne and organized by the Orators agency, for example, cost the company “several thousand euros”. “These are not necessarily amounts that we usually pay for this kind of animation, agrees Agathe Fouache. But as we know that this kind of operation is almost the only source of income for activists to finance their actions, we do it with a good heart.” For her part, Camille Etienne presents events of this type as an exception in a daily newspaper made “80% of conferences given to schools or associations” and whose amount, often nil, rarely exceeds “a few hundred euros, or a train ticket for the journey”. “Even for this one, I did not receive 7000 euros”, insists Camille Etienne. How much, exactly? We won’t know. But various interlocutors point out that its prices are within the standards of the sector.
Incommensurate with heads of state
However, the range of prices is very wide, depending on the speaker and the company. “In reality, there is not really a grid, assures Noé Bolzinger. As we work with people, as the format and location vary, it is difficult to set a price.” Some risk it all the same. “The prices for speakers in France range between 2,000 and 30,000 euros for an hour, explains Christophe de la Chaise, general manager of Ceca, specializing in the organization of conferences. Those specializing in climate interventions are generally located in the slice of 3000 to 7000 euros.” Others, like Simone and Nelson, place the range between 4,000 and “10,000 euros, for those with a high reputation”, for about an hour of intervention. Prices out of all proportion to those charged by international celebrities or heads of state, of course – Barack Obama, for example, received… 400,000 euros for a conference in 2017! – but which remain attractive, especially at the hourly rate.
The discretion surrounding this type of private event, generally held on company premises, also represents an additional attraction. “This allows us to talk to people beyond our bubble, to whom we would not normally have access, with the opportunity to change things from the inside, notes Benjamin de Molliens. In this way, we do not does not serve as a guarantee for greenwashing”. This last week of May, he has just finished a conference with a very young American company. The theme ? Sobriety. “I’m working on how we can be less consumerist, and they were very enthusiastic,” he reports, laughing: “However, I was speaking to a unicorn, so to people who are rather in a perspective of hypergrowth!” The speaker does not refrain from going “anywhere, with the exception of certain political parties”.
For her part, Camille Etienne affirms to favor brands in agreement with her fights, “unless I am invited by the employees”. In the past, she was invited by employees of JPMorgan or the Ritz for two conferences – unpaid. Without, however, saying that it throws stones at the climate speakers who themselves choose to go everywhere. Contacted, another business speaker preferring to remain anonymous, known for his statements on decline, is annoyed: “It’s an old subject that comes up regularly and, surprise, surprise, it’s always the greens who get hit on it as soon as someone gets a penny”. “Being an environmentalist or an anti-capitalist does not mean that one must necessarily live in a tent, believes Camille Etienne. If some can make a living from it, or finance their projects, so much the better.” We do not extract ourselves so easily from the system in which we live.