IMPACT COMMUNICATION
AND INNOVATION
AND INNOVATION
Continuing the content on positive impact in companies, which I began in the article Why brands should care about generating positive impact, I was able to spend an entire day at Mercur learning a little more about their management model, the factory, and the social innovation lab.
Understanding that companies are made of people and that every transition process begins when an individual or a group of people is internally connected to this movement, I spoke with Jorge Hoelzel Neto. At 56, Jorge is part of the third generation of the family that owns the company. Former director and current facilitator at the company, he began the transition process at Mercur in 2008, starting with a brand repositioning project.
For him, positive impact in companies comes from "valuing human contact and relationships beyond technical and self-interested matters," which makes it possible to build a more meaningful life, respecting diversity and believing that the complementarity of people builds abundance and a balance of wealth. Sustainability, therefore, means "acting in favor of life instead of valuing only economic and financial opportunism."
Follow the conversation:
At what point did you realize that the transition process at Mercur was important? And how did that process go?
When we finished a brand repositioning in 2007, we realized that something was missing from our strategic outlook. That was when we hired a consultancy that began by diagnosing the social and environmental issues of our journey. From then on, we began our studies to expand our knowledge of the areas we needed to work on.
What were the main shifts from old paradigms to new ones?
Looking at life from a broader context than just work or the raw materials we consume was the main change. From there, changes begin to happen with greater consistency to our purpose.
What were the main challenges you faced during this process?
The biggest challenge is always in the understanding that people have about life. It is not common for us to learn to value life beyond economic and financial matters.
In your TED talk, you mention the symbols that represent this new chapter for the company, such as the dialogue circles. Could you tell us a bit more about these types of dynamics currently taking place at Mercur?
When you aim to operate with a focus on life and people, it is essential to create tools and moments that facilitate dialogue and the sharing of knowledge. With this in mind, we developed dynamics to foster these encounters, such as "Living Circles," "Chimarrão Circles," and others designed to broaden social interaction and encourage the experience of diversity.
In this process, has the financial crisis of recent years affected your business? And what are the key insights you've gained from navigating it?
I believe the crisis has affected everyone, and it has been no different for Mercur. But we are learning that what matters is not how much you earn, but how you spend what you earn. This learning process happens through the sharing of responsibilities.
At one point in our dialogue circle, you commented: "Profit creates a different sense of time and urgency." How do you view the relationship between financial goals and sustainability drivers, and the concept of profit within this new logic?
Financial goals and profit remain very important, but they cannot take precedence over the company's purpose. In other words, economic and financial matters are the means by which we can make the purpose we have assumed regarding life viable. In this context, profit appears as the result of what is done to value life.
It really struck me that you are a manufacturing company, yet your innovation isn't directly related to production facilities, but rather to management processes and the pursuit of solutions for people's needs. Was that the focus from the beginning?
We understand that any shift in positioning must start with people, as they are the ones who will be able to provide the necessary changes in industrial processes in the future. Our change is not related to what we do, but to how we do what we do. It means we need to enable the industry to adopt a more human-centric vision.
Rubber is Mercur's main raw material. Can you tell us a bit about the process with the rubber tappers in the Xingu region and also with your supplier industries? Do you work within the production ecosystem to align their processes with your sustainability indicators?
The purchase of natural rubber in the Amazon (Acre and Pará) stems from a desire to stimulate a process of job and income generation for people who are at the heart of the history of natural rubber in Brazil. The production of this raw material in the Amazon decreased significantly with the cultivation of rubber plantations in the southeastern states, which were encouraged due to lower costs and fewer logistical difficulties in transporting it to the center of the country. Even so, our largest volume continues to be acquired in the southeast, where the main natural rubber processing plants are located.
I was able to learn a bit more about the Social Innovation Lab, the learning hub, the Diversidade na Rua project, and Colabora. Tell us a little about the emergence of this learning hub, the Lab, and the main drivers for the development of the projects that come from there?
We understand that the learning process is something that must remain constant in our lives, which is why we highly value spaces that can promote the exchange of knowledge among people. To make this process viable, we created our LAB (Mercur Social Innovation Laboratory), which has the role of stimulating this process and helping to build important projects that enable our purpose of participating in the construction of
"a world that is good for everyone."
Many companies, institutions, professionals, and thinkers of the new economy have inspired you in this transition process. Would you share some of them with us?
We have some influential proposals that we call "Founding References," which help us build our world, such as: Paulo Freire, Humberto Maturana, Deep Ecology, Schumacher College, among others.
How does it feel today, almost 10 years after the start of this transition, and what are the next important steps for the company in this regard?
We understand that our journey has brought us important knowledge to continue our endeavor of giving more meaning to our lives. Not just as professionals, but as human beings more committed to life.
