How can we all take actions in a sim­ple way to reduce our eco­log­i­cal impact? Every­one can do small things that make a big dif­fer­ence. One exam­ple is the start-up com­pa­ny OOPLA, cofound­ed by Thibaut Aaron, a native of Amiens, who start­ed his cru­sade in June 2018. This com­pa­ny spe­cialis­es in reduc­ing our envi­ron­men­tal foot­print. OOPLA, for Only One Plan­et, designs and dis­trib­utes solu­tions designed to accel­er­ate the eco­log­i­cal tran­si­tion by reduc­ing our con­sump­tion of resources. 

A start-up spe­cial­ist in reduc­ing the envi­ron­men­tal foot­print has been installed for more than a year at Sta­tion F, the world’s largest start-up cam­pus, in order to accel­er­ate the deploy­ment of its solu­tions rec­on­cil­ing ecol­o­gy and econ­o­my. The first solu­tion, offered at the gen­er­al pub­lic price of 25 € includ­ing tax and avail­able at suroopla.fr, allows you to reduce your water con­sump­tion by lim­it­ing the waste of this resource. The water kit already dis­trib­uted in more than 5 000 copies is designed to be deliv­ered direct­ly to the let­ter­box, saves up to 50 000 litres of water/year and €280 per year for a two-per­son house­hold. “With an aver­age water con­sump­tion of 150 litres per French per­son per day and more and more droughts, tak­ing action is becom­ing a pri­or­i­ty,” says Thibaut Aaron, one of the six found­ing part­ners. OOPLA has launched its cru­sade by demon­strat­ing that act­ing for the plan­et can be eco­nom­i­cal­ly prof­itable. By tack­ling the waste of resources, the young start-up also offers a laun­dry kit and eco­log­i­cal box­es on the themes of ener­gy and waste, includ­ing the tooth box con­tain­ing three Moso bam­boo tooth­brush­es and a sol­id nat­ur­al tooth­paste with men­thol crys­tals, rat­ed 100/100 on Yuka. The aim is to enable every­one to reduce their envi­ron­men­tal impact while sav­ing mon­ey. In total, more than 11 000 kits have already been sold.

A solidary, social enterprise

Anx­ious to inte­grate a social aspect to its activ­i­ty, OOPLA spon­ta­neous­ly turned to ESAT Les Papil­lons Blancs, Sois­sons to assem­ble its kits. “They are the real heroes! They are par­tic­u­lar­ly con­sci­en­tious and do a great job,” says Thibaut Aaron, who under­takes for each box sold, to plant a tree in a devel­op­ing coun­try affect­ed by defor­esta­tion. At the age of 29, Thibaut Aaron already has an excel­lent track record in terms of envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion. A grad­u­ate with an M2 in polit­i­cal sci­ence, risk man­age­ment and a mas­ter’s degree in inter­na­tion­al and Euro­pean law, Thibaut Aaron is so moti­vat­ed by his desire to do some­thing for the plan­et that he does not hes­i­tate to write to the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic, to share his con­vic­tions. “I have also con­tact­ed the French Min­istry of Ecol­o­gy and I was able to join, in par­al­lel with my stud­ies, the cab­i­net of the Élysée with t wo of François Hol­lan­de’s advis­ers on envi­ron­men­tal and ener­gy issues. My office was very close to Nico­las Hulot’s office. My role, notably, was to par­tic­i­pate in the inter­min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tees, to pre­pare reports on ener­gy and trans­port to help in deci­sion-mak­ing on issues such as the ener­gy tran­si­tion law, the law for the recov­ery of bio­di­ver­si­ty and the del­i­cate SNCM dossier. I have to admit that there are a lot of fan­tasies around this place of pow­er, which for me remains a sim­ple envi­ron­ment where sub­stan­tive sub­jects can be dealt with,” Thibaut Aaron reveals. At the end of his work-study con­tract at the Élysée Palace, he joined the Enedis com­pa­ny, at La Défense, in the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment depart­ment until Novem­ber 2016, to pre­pare COP21. These are two won­der­ful and enrich­ing expe­ri­ences that the Amiens region has decid­ed to put to good use in its own adventure. 

Around the world of energy transition

Thibaut Aaron is also the founder of Cli­mac­tion, a vol­un­teer mis­sion to pro­mote ener­gy tran­si­tion and the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my around the world. Indeed, in 2017, he began the Ener­gy Tran­si­tion Tour. “The idea of the Ener­gy Tran­si­tion Tour was to con­vey pos­i­tive, guilt­free mes­sages to the pop­u­la­tion. We are young and all of us fell very young into the dig­i­tal age. With the pow­er of social net­works we can do more with less. We still expect a lot from the State in terms of the envi­ron­ment, yet it is a very dif­fi­cult task. It is the super­im­po­si­tion of every­one’s actions on a dai­ly basis that will change the sit­u­a­tion. We were able to make on the spot jour­nal­ism solu­tions with ped­a­gog­i­cal work­shops for the youngest, school­child­ren and stu­dents and pho­to and video reports of all the ini­tia­tives we dis­cov­ered in Mada­gas­car, Sene­gal and the African continent.»