Phenix

Team B
Mario Petralia, Ercai Zhuo, Francesco de Rosa, Xiangxue Kong, Zirui Wang, Charles Antoine Argenson
Phenix: the innovative startup
Phenix is one of the leading startups aiming at fighting the waste in Europe. Thanks to its network
characterized by professionals and committed citizens, Phenix had been able to save +100 millions of
meals. This startup was founded in 2004 by two people and since that time it has reached 170 people:
their purpose is to educate people toward a environmental friendly behavior and to implement
innovative solutions so that unsold items (food and non-food) never became waste.
Also, Phenix has implemented the mobile application, which allows citizens to take concrete action
against the waste: in fact, they can buy unsold items from merchants at reduced prices.
Phenix: some relevant aspect

Purpose: fight against the food waste

Year of fundation: 2004

Headquarters: Paris, Île-de-France

Figures: +100millions of meals saved in six years, 120 000 meals saved daily, 170 people involved
Website: http://www.wearephenix.com
What type of governance innovation is being discussed in the
interview?
Stakeholder governance(Hybrid): to try to make profit and try to have a
social impact
Same importance: Classical financial reporting (turnovers, profits) + Extra-financial
reporting (number of meals saved, number of CO2 emissions saved, number of families
helped)
100% transparent in management and the way of sharing information (salaries, figures,
news)
Traditional Board + Stakeholders Committee (consist of employees, charity partners)
What are the organizational transformations related to this change?

➢ Transparency within the company (everyone knows about good and bad news) and within employees
(they know each other's salaries).
➢ Beside the traditional board of directors (investors, managers), a new committee is introduced, we can
call it a “stakeholder” committee. This council is composed not only of shareholders, but also
employees, charity and other minority interests. It permits everyone within the company to express
him/herself.
➢ Beside KPIs and other financial indicators, there are several non-financial indicators used by the
company. Profitability is important, but it is not the only objective: it is not a case that the company
itself posed a limit on its lucrativity.
 What are the main benefits of such transformation?
From the external aspects:

➢ Putting the extra financial impacts and the financial impacts on the same level helps to build the brand
name on society. Not only focusing on financial impacts like shareholders’ profits, but also emphasizing
on social impacts like green finance and the number of being helped families, Phenix enhances its brand
awareness and influence.
➢ Absorb more investment. Based on the principle to be responsible for all stakeholders, individuals and
institutions will trust Phenix, consider it as a reliable one hence invest on Phenix.

From the internal aspects:

➢ Mobilize the initiatives of the staff and improve the retention rate for staff. By limiting the wage
ranges, and making salaries transparent and sharing all the figures with employees, employees will be
motivated and they will be more likely to stay. As the consequence, their performance will be better.
 What are the main limits of such transformation?

➢ The difficulty of balancing on social and economic value. Rather than the traditional model, which
considers profits only, the hybrid one needs to think about the social impact when making
decision, while for some occasions, the social impact is regarded as non-profit, a compromise
needs to be made.

➢ The need of reaching big scale to support the social economy. The social contribution, such as
social reporting demands a strong financial support, and a big scale of business is necessary.
Please provide a personal judgement & synthesis on the sustainability
innovation potential of the initiative.

Social innovation is the process of developing and deploying effective solutions to challenging and often systemic
social and environmental issues in support of social progress.

It balances social and environmental purposes and growth in a concept of a new type of enterpriship. It is a more
fair way than traditional ways to shareholders and stakeholders.

By social purpose, it focuses on three missions: demand, charity and finance. And it has achieved the goal savings in
waste management expenses and taxes.

In addition, Phenix has the potential to balance social and economic value well, and to manage the goal of increases
which show great potential in future growth.