6.1.1.1. Transition function

The quality of communication between different levels of representation is a major determinant of the meeting of individual and collective interests when designing and implementing integrated product-service systems (PSS) in a whole that promotes the sustainability of a functional territorial ecosystem. At least that is what we suggested. The ambition of the DMCS approach is to propose principles for validating this hypothesis and measuring these qualities.

The aim is to describe a co-evolution between territorial sustainability considered as a collective performance, and the activity costs of the entities, and then to consider the driving role of the shared informative and cognitive heritage, through an analysis of the territorial IS – the state and institutionalization dynamics of this system can, in our opinion, be considered as indicators of the state and dynamics of this heritage.

In practice, the informative and cognitive assessment makes it possible to approach the way in which the deliberation that accompanies a cooperative transaction leads to the co-evolution of individual and collective representations of performance (see Figure 6.2). This jointly describes a renewal of the contractual content and the formal or informal institutionalization of the territorial IS.

The triple heritage identity introduced in the previous chapter thus constitutes a guide, a guideline – or “safeguard” – which makes it possible to support the cooperative transaction process toward the production of “communicating” contracts – referring to the fact that such contracts may help other actors in the territory to represent the performances described by the co-contractors.

This approach also makes it possible to territorialize the non-monetary indicators and meta-information associated with a PSS contract, while opening up to the territory their interpretation in terms of functional performance and possible service contracts in other valuation localities.

A contract is therefore no longer just a frontier object between use value and exchange value; it is a media that shows a performance. It is an integral part of the territorial IS, embodying and propagating its institutional renewal, facilitating both the recognition of the multifunctional productions with which it is associated and the solvency of the business models of the actors who carry these productions. The contract structures the territorial heritage.

This analysis of the influence of information and cognitive heritage on the joint achievement of collective territorial sustainability objectives and the solvency objectives of each individual’s activities should be completed by a dynamic approach. The aim is to ensure that value analysis is part of the continuity of production processes, i.e. over time, which also implies going beyond the static version of the informative and cognitive balance sheet.

Our approach will consist of modeling the relationships between, on the one hand, the collective representations of the processes of maintenance of the sustainability of the territorial system (maintenance of social, ecological, economic, governance and propagation functions), and, on the other hand, the monetary costs of activities whose performance contributes to this maintenance.

6.1.1.1.4. Determining collective costs from the costs of contributing to the collective

The distinction between the specific organizations and structures of the same set of actors makes it possible to compare the costs of each actor’s activities with the operating costs of the processes of maintaining the sustainability of the territory. It is indeed a single and same dynamic: the collective processes of maintenance, and the activities specific to each of the actors, can only be distinguished because of a choice of perspective – micro-or mesoeconomic¹.

The integration of microeconomic costs provides an interpretation of the overall level of costs of territorial processes whose evolution, analyzed jointly with that of the territorial informative and cognitive balance sheet, must, in our opinion, feed a renewal of the relationship between political economy and local innovation, as well as a re-foundation of the evaluation of wealth produced by the actors of a territory.

Figure 6.3 describes the co-evolution of individual and collective representations of performance associated with processes for maintaining the sustainability of a territorial functional ecosystem.

The choice of colors in Figure 6.3 is a biological analogy: the representations of relatively poor activities in terms of collective innovation capacities are renewed and enriched by the cooperative transaction conducted during negotiations on the performance of maintenance processes and the means to be allocated.

The choice to make a distinction appear between informative and cognitive liabilities at time t and time t + 1, without formally distinguishing two states t and t + 1 from informative and cognitive asset, is a graphical simplification aimed at insisting on the fact that the evolution of collective representations takes place over a longer time than that of individual representations.

This logic introduces the transition function associated with the modeling of territorial functional ecosystem dynamics, i.e. the mathematical formalism by which the values of the system state vector at time t0 are changed at later time t1 into other values of the same state vector.

6.1.1.2. Modeling joint productions

A dynamic system can be modeled using a state vector a state vector and a transition function, and must therefore establish the boundary between an “interior” and an “exterior” to the system (Daucé 2002).

The definition of the state vector, although complex, represents a priori the least problematic part of DMCS approach. It is a question of jointly describing, at a given moment, the state of the informative and cognitive heritage available to the system in question, the performance of this system, and the costs of the processes that drive it. As for the problem of the border between the interior and exterior of the system, we will approach it in a rather trivial way, considering as “exterior” the entities disconnected from the territorial IS that are the subject of the analysis.

The DMCS will be approached in a neo-Ricardian approach, described as joint productions (Sraffa 1960; Pasinetti 1975).

A joint production model makes it possible to mathematically transcribe how the co-evolution of a process system (the processes of maintenance of the territorial functional ecosystem) mobilizes and renews a set of resources (the representations of the actors who define and animate these processes).

Von Neumann’s (1945–1946) formalism allows us to consider a pair of matrices [A(T); B(T)] both of dimensions M*N, whose coefficients “respectively represent the proportion of input and output of the resource considered so that the process considered can produce a unit of activity. Each pair of raw vectors represents a process; and each pair of column vectors represents a resource” (Verger and O'Connor, 2013).

First of all, it should be noted that these two matrices refer to the same time t. It is therefore not a question of reporting in one of the matrices of a system state that would be prior to the one reported in the other matrix (as shown in the didactic representation presented in Figure 6.3). It is a question of modeling, over time, the relationship between individual representations mobilized at time t and individual representations renewed at t as well.

It should also be noted that the unit of activity mentioned by Verger and O’Connor (2013) to describe how a process works must, in our opinion, be characterized by a shared use value.

This value is derived from a description of the qualities of use associated, during deliberations, with the territorial functions whose maintenance must be ensured by the process under consideration. The process of maintaining one of these functions cannot be described by the same set of indicators as the one used to describe the process of another. A unit of activity in shared use value is therefore specific to a performance domain (social, ecological, economic, governance, propagation).

A shared social use value unit, considered to describe the usefulness of the process of maintaining the social functions of the territory, will therefore not have commensurability with the shared economic use value unit that describes that of maintaining economic functions. The systemic links between the shared uses qualified by these two units can be described by highlighting the relationship between the indicators used for their respective descriptions. But each of these shared use values can only be expressed autonomously, intrinsically, at the end of a qualification based on deliberations and giving rise to local, unique and renewed agreements.

The modeling of the attached productions then ensures the analytical link between the shared use value attached to the territorial functions; the use value specific to the activity of the contributors who embody the maintenance processes; and the costs of carrying out these activities, and therefore these processes.

Each cell of the Von Neumann formalism presented on the previous page (Figure 6.4) thus corresponds to a specific use value indicator.

In the left frame, it is the specific use value that feeds the actor’s representations (in column) when he/she participates in the collective formalization of the shared use value of territorial functions that governs the development of the maintenance processes for these functions (in line).

In the right frame, it is the specific use value that feeds the actor’s representations (in column) when he/she formalizes the utilities he/she derives from an adaptation of his/her activity aimed at contributing to the maintenance processes of territorial functions (in line).

Together, these two frameworks make it possible to describe the state, at a given moment, of the informative and cognitive balance sheet of the cooperative transaction situation during which a group of actors determines the content of shared use value units that they associate with the sustainability of the territory.

The valuation of each of the variables of the two frameworks in this balance sheet is to be based on the triple heritage identity method, applied to the calculation of the levels:

• – of the connectivity between ISs dedicated to representing the relationships between, on the one hand, specific use values and activity costs, and, on the other hand, shared use values and collective costs;
• – of the resilience of the methods and tools mobilized to collectively address shared use values, in the face of the capture power potentially exercised by the methods and tools mobilized during the activities specific to some;
• – of the materiality of the issues raised by the preservation of territorial functions, issues that form the basis for the expression of shared use values, and are associated with specific use values by each of the actors.

Once this informative and cognitive balance sheet has been “respectfully closed”, the calculation of an operating cost per process can be considered. In other words, the DMCS implies that at all times the triple heritage identity must be “certified compliant” before any contractualization relating to the achievement of the sustainability performance of the functional ecosystem. The certification of this conformity could be based on digital tools of the type offered by the ePLANETe.Blue² portal.

Before entering into the description of practical modalities, some conceptual foundations of the DMCS still need to be clarified. For example, it is crucial to clearly distinguish the evaluation framework from the purpose being evaluated. What we are trying to assess here is not the effect of individual performance on territorial performance based on an established standard, even collectively. The purpose of this modeling is to describe over time the effects of improving the adequacy of individual and collective representations with a situation of collective production of standards that establish what performance is. The cost approach then intervenes in control: the coherence between cost systems represented at the collective level and cost systems represented at the level of the activities specific to each constitutes a guarantee of the quality of the territorial informative and cognitive heritage.

6.1.2.1. Accounting for socioeconomic production

The approach we propose reverses the usual conceptions of economic analysis that have cost information as an “output product”.

The DMCS’s “output product” is information relating to individual and collective representations of the sustainability of the territory. It therefore does not provide any indication of activity costs and maintenance process costs. The DMCS accompanies the analysis of each party’s own activity costs and facilitates the identification of opportunities for performance improvement that are compatible with – or based on – the contribution of stakeholders to the smooth running of the processes for maintaining the sustainability of the territorial functional ecosystem.

Determining the costs of carrying out these processes would be trivial if it were simply a matter of consolidating the contributions made by each of the actors to shift their activity toward a mode of operation conducive to these processes. This is not the case.

On the one hand, many functional contributions to maintenance processes are made in the form of contributions in plural work – as we mentioned this concept at the end of the first chapter – or in kind, which are not monetarized. The achievement of a shared use value level therefore depends only in part on the activities whose performance is formalized by the accounting systems. Basing the comparison of shared-use values and specific-use values on the scope of accounting activities would lead to a major bias.

On the other hand, the analysis of the functional interactions between these contributions requires a systemic, specific and renewed analysis based on deliberations and collective productions of local performance evaluation agreements.

Our approach will then be to establish an analytical balance between the monetary costs of contributors’ activities to a collective capacity, and the non-monetary representation of the effects of each contributor’s contribution to maintaining that capacity. This will make it possible to include work and benefits that are not valued in monetary terms by identifying which collective cost reductions they allow to be observed.

Another analytical perspective will consist, on this basis, of highlighting the part of financial productivity that is in fact de facto attributable to actors whose non-market activity contributes to the reduction of collective costs.

A consistent analysis of the costs associated with each process will then involve:

• – to develop an algorithm for linking micro and meso performance in order to analyze the systemic relationships between entity activities and the maintenance process of the territorial functional ecosystem;
• – to associate to each process couples [shared use value criterion – performance indicators] and couples [specific use value criterion – performance indicators];
• – to carry out an aggregated consolidation of the formally recorded costs of the activities involved in carrying out all maintenance processes;
• – to allocate analytically the amount of this consolidated cost between the formal or informal contributing activities, in proportion to their level of contribution to all maintenance processes;
• – to consolidate these costs, always in an aggregated manner, but this time on a process-by-process basis, according to the level of contribution of the activities to each of the processes considered separately;
• – to associate a monetary amount to each of the five couples [shared use value criterion – performance indicators] and to the couples [specific use value criterion – performance indicators].

To support the description of this approach, it is desirable to consider a new structuring of the territorial IS. This must promote the joint but differentiated representation of the same productive phenomenon observed from the micro- and meso-levels of representation.

Figure 6.5 proposes the articulation of a territorial IS adapted to a DMCS approach.

From bottom to top, Figure 6.5 is to be interpreted as follows:

• – The official accounts of the actors of the territory (level 1) do not make it possible to account for the effects of the informative and cognitive heritage on the evolution of the propensities to recognize the shared uses offered by the territorial functions (social, ecological, economic, governance, propagation). Nor do these accounts make it possible to detect whether this recognition of shared uses is accompanied by recognition of opportunities for new specific uses, i.e. adaptation of activities, or whether these adaptations are likely to be associated with cost reductions. The formalization of immaterial assets is indeed limited to the field of cost accounting, which limits the capacity for collective territorial representation by locking communication between the manager and the accountant at the micro level (see section 2.1.2.2).
• – An activity analytical account, based on the CARE® model (see section 4.2.2.1) is associated with each of these actors’ official accounts (level 2). This type of analytical module, interfaced with the official account of each actor, makes it possible to report on its involvement in one or more PSS (see section 2.1.1.2) calibrated to strengthen both the maintenance processes of the territorial functional ecosystem and the solvency of each of the actors involved. The costs incurred by the actor for this involvement in PSS are considered here as accounting commitments, recorded on the liabilities side, and enabling it to discharge an informally contracted “debt” toward the territorial functional ecosystem. Meanwhile, a monetary representation of the value of the means necessary to the actions that make it possible to maintain the functions of this functional ecosystem – and the use that cannot exist without access to these functions – is recognized as an asset.
• – A PSS analytical account, inspired by the Comptabilité Universelle® (Universal Accounting) model (see section 4.2.2.1) is associated with each PSS (level 3). A PSS institutionally materializes a locality of valorization within the territorial IS. It is embodied by a multi-stakeholder legal and economic entity whose contractual formalization is the result of a mutual recognition of individual and shared interests to collectively achieve and enhance a multifunctional production complex. An account associated with this multi-stakeholder entity, or more precisely the contractual link between the actors, makes it possible to establish a reference system of indicators and meta-information. This account constitutes a system of local representation of individual and collective performance, and specific and shared use values. Each deliberative and contractual PSS system is therefore the component of an “analytical entity” with which a balance sheet and an activity account could be associated, with the objective of providing local negotiation support, by improving the shared visibility of the distinctions between the effects and benefits of each other’s contributing implications³.

Comptabilité Universelle® (Universal Accounting) can then be a source of inspiration. Its formalism is adapted to a diachronic evaluation that would make it possible to consider the representation of a PSS both in the time of the territorial functional ecosystem and in that of the economic balance of the entities that constitute it. We propose an adaptation⁴ aimed at equipping the first level of the virtual distribution/consolidation of activity costs by processes that we have just described.

This adaptation jointly allows:

• – to record in five income statements the monetary charges and income associated with the non-monetary qualification and measurement of the specific use values to which each PSS contracting party associates disadvantages and advantages for their own business;
• – to record on the assets and liabilities of five balance sheet dimensions the shared use values – non-monetary – associated with the collective evaluation of the contribution of this PSS to the five processes of maintenance of the territorial functional ecosystem.

Such accounting would promote the establishment of bridges between monetary and non-monetary representations. The production of performance indicators, their structuring in PSS contractual clauses and the territorial communication process, which renews the organization and interpretation of associated meta-information, can therefore be compared with stock and cash flow dynamics.

• – A territorial functional ecosystem account, again based on the CARE® model, combines the values represented at the level of several PSSs with those resulting from an intrinsically territorial valuation (level 4). CARE® is mobilized here in the same way as at the entity level, with two differences. On the one hand, the values recorded are shared use values, i.e. they are described by a non-monetary representation system consisting of couples [shared use value criterion – performance indicators]. On the other hand, the entity to which this method applies corresponds to a collective actor jointly managing the territorial functional ecosystem. And if all the entities that make up the functional ecosystem are involved in this management, the rationality of this collective actor is not only nourished by the search for consensus or synthesis, but by the articulation and conjugation of the representations made by each of these entities.

It is here that the problems of cognitive dissonance that we have mentioned appear: the shared use values expressed collectively in deliberation are not necessarily compatible with the values specific to each person’s profession. This is also where the informative and cognitive assessment comes in.

The non-monetary recording of a shared use value describes:

• – On the liabilities side, a commitment by the collective actor in the maintenance of territorial functions. This commitment corresponds to the strength of a plural work engaged by the contributions of living and non-living actors in the five maintenance processes each described by a shared use value. It is recorded under five liability lines associated with the five processes. Its level is determined on the basis of an integrative (non-aggregative) analysis of the PSS analytical accounts.
• – On the assets side, a collective actor capacity conferred by the sustainability of territorial functions. This capacity corresponds to the shared use value that is collectively allocated – negotiated – with regard to the benefits conferred by the specific use that each of these functions has. It is recorded according to five asset lines at the level of the value of the means necessary to reduce the liability for the corresponding line. This value can be depreciated, in the CARE® logic, according to the evolution of the informative and cognitive balance sheet.

The relationships established at the level of each PSS between shared use values, specific use values, advantages and disadvantages, on the one hand, and stocks and cash flows, on the other hand, will thus be reorganized to reflect a collective territorial rationality.

• – An ESA 2010 dashboard (see section 5.1.1.1) then acts as an interface between the territorial functional ecosystem account (level 5) and national accounts (level 6).

This involves restructuring the relationship between shared monetary costs (divided into five domains at the level of each PSS analytical account), and non-monetary indicators of shared use values associated with each of the five asset lines of the territorial functional ecosystem account.

The objective here is to translate the functional analysis of value into the language of macroeconomic decision makers, and according to the reading framework that will soon be required of them, i.e. by comparing monetary and non-monetary data in an original way in a set of satellite accounts close to those described by the European System of Accounts ESA 2010 (see section 4.2.2.2).

6.1.2.2. Incorporation of informative and cognitive work

Distinguishing between the analysis of shared use values and specific use values also leads to distinguishing between the analysis of the performance of activities that contribute to territorial sustainability (shared use value) and that of the costs of these activities (specific use value).

But, as we have just seen, it is not immediately possible to discern the part of the cost of an activity that can be associated with a cost of contributing to territorial sustainability. Nor is it possible to determine whether an expense or income is attributable to the entity’s traditional activity or to a change aimed at making its activity more sustainable. This change could be attributed to the concerted specialization approach that includes this entity in the territorial functional ecosystem (see section 2.1.1.2).

One way to approach this problem is to consider that the entity exists jointly and distinctly at at least two levels of reality. It exists at the level of reality in which the dominant, market and ultraliberal economy is objectified, and therefore not only globalized but deterritorialized. It also exists in the economy of common goods as defined by Ostrom (2010) – an economy characterized by the collective governance of the emergence and maintenance of material⁵, environmental⁶, knowledge (Hess and Ostrom 2007) and all types of commons that contribute to solving ecological unsustainability and economic insolvency while increasing social inclusion.

The functional economy that we defend, by basing the selection of sociotechnical innovations and the terms of their valorization on a local political choice, builds a bridge between these two worlds and constitutes a third one.

The most fundamental specificity of this functional economy lies in the way work is incorporated into production processes.

Valuing co-productions within a functional ecosystem implies not only a distinction and conjunction between the value of the work of each of the actors and the value of collective work, but also a distinction and conjunction of the valuation paradigms that characterize the market economy and the common economy.

This is shown, for example, by the formation of “green value” in private commercial real estate (see section 4.1.1.2). In our opinion, the correctness of the market price of a rehabilitation operation cannot be understood solely in the sense of a fair remuneration by the market for the usefulness of the ex post effect of this operation in terms of its contribution to the sustainability of territorial commons. Indeed, the cost of the socioeconomic levers necessary to promote these rehabilitations must also be taken into consideration. And the community that agrees to invest in these levers – in particular the lever of pedagogy (see section 4.1.1.2) – does so in an approach to improving the quality of a common: the local informative and cognitive heritage, often simply described as collective intelligence.

More generally, shared use and market exchange are phenomena that occur in two parallel intersubjective realities whose only influences on the trans-subjective realities of the world are found, but whose representations can be made consistent through a political economy that frames their co-evolution.

The DMCS territorial IS that we propose aims to open a new window of interpretation of this co-evolution between market reality and common reality, and, through it, a way of renewing the non-monetary and monetary valuation methods of the phenomena that drive them both in order to strengthen the management capacity of the commons through a transformation of market practices.

The starting point of our reasoning is that the valuation of a set of productive phenomena does not only imply considering a distinction-conjunction between individual work and the collective work necessary to achieve these phenomena; this valuation must first qualify a work of representation by distinguishing individual and collective components of this work, and then approach separately their incorporation into production processes.

If we refer to the notion of incorporated labor which is at the heart of the concept of value developed by Marx on the basis of the work of classical economists, our approach invites us to distinguish two components of the value of a reproduced resource. A component of this value must be attributed to the incorporation of a work of representation of the resource and the production processes that mobilize and reproduce it, i.e. the representation of the productive phenomenon. Another component of this value must be attributed to the incorporation of the work of implementation of the activities that actually carry out this mobilization and reproduction.

The joint production modeling (Sraffa 1960; Pasinetti 1975) that we have proposed to mobilize (see section 6.1.1.2) is a neo-Ricardian approach that describes the evolution of a process system that simultaneously mobilizes and reproduces a set of resources.

Dumesnil and Levy consider that the distribution of labor quantities is possible for a net product⁷ of the production system⁸ and pose the following theorem: “any vector quantity of good that can be obtained as a net product of the system has a positive value defined as the incorporation of labor required for its net production” (Dumesnil and Levy, 1982, p. 35).

This approach makes it possible, on the one hand, to describe how the co-evolution of the processes for maintaining the sustainability of the functions of the territorial functional ecosystem induces a net shared use value for each of these processes. It also makes it possible to separate the part of the representation work from the implementation work that is carried out by the activities that drive these processes.

6.1.2.2.2. Incorporation of representation work

This proposal for a territorial IS also organizes – and this is the core of our research – a system for incorporating representation work. The informative and cognitive balance, applied to communications between entities, PSS and functional ecosystem governance, makes it possible to determine the level of informative and cognitive heritage incorporated into the territorial IS (see section 5.2.2).

We will thus consider that this incorporation of the work of representation:

• – is carried out according to the level of informative and cognitive heritage, which determines the modulation of the depreciation of shared use values recorded as assets in the territorial functional ecosystem account;
• – is calibrated jointly for each entity involved in a PSS, by depreciating each asset line of the CARE® model associated with it (depreciation always based on the territorial informative and cognitive balance sheet, and with the same level of modulation for each asset line).

This approach can be interpreted as an application of the precautionary principle described in Chapter 1 (see section 1.1.1.2). Indeed, if the ISs shared by the actors of a territory do not allow them collective descriptions of sufficient quality to reflect both sustainability issues and microeconomic strategies likely to meet them, then individual activities and maintenance processes will be more costly.

However, a technical difficulty, inherent in the modeling of joint productions, appears when it comes to distributing the quantities of work among the outputs of the same process. For Dumesnil and Levy (1982), the characteristic of this type of model is that work “is inseparably incorporated into these various products in the same productive act”.

Are we going to depreciate the assets of all the entities in the territory uniformly according to the collective capacities of representation? Or is it possible to determine depreciation levels specific to one or the other of the PSSs?

Let us return to the case study of the aggregates sector. The KerBabel^TM for You (K4U) evaluation algorithm presented in Figure 6.8 reflects a situation in which one “PSS aggregate production” has lower propagation performance of the representation capacities than the other PSS. It can then be assumed that the CARE® depreciation applicable to entities of this PSS is greater than that applicable to PSSs descriptive of other phases of the aggregate lifecycle.

More generally, the analysis of governance and propagation performance will make it possible to establish keys for modulating microeconomic depreciation, according to the contributions of each group of actors to the territorial work of mesoeconomic representation.

6.2.1.1. Static structures and living networks

For Capra (2003, pp. 178–179), “the organizational pattern of any system, whether living or not, is the configuration of the relationships between the components of the system, which determines the essential characteristics of the system (…). The structure of a system is the physical materialization of its organizational pattern”. Capra adds that “if the description of an organization pattern implies an abstract projection of relationships, the description of the structure requires describing the physical components of the system in their reality – forms, chemical compositions, etc. – in order to describe the structure” (ibid.).

The reference to the functional ecosystem model, which is present in all the previous chapters, invites us to pursue the biological analogy and to mobilize these notions of organization and structure by comparing living systems and economic systems.

The analysis of biophysical systems can distinguish different types of structures: static structure, network, dissipative structure and living network.

Static structures are physicochemical arrangements with thermodynamic equilibrium, i.e. systems at the end of their evolution, structuring and life. They can be integrated into networks in which matter circulates, and energy dissipates (Odum 1953). These networks promote prebiological molecular organizations and catalytic cycles or closed-loop catalytic networks (Eigen 1971), which are the essential processes for the chemistry of life. The notion of dissipative structures (Prigogine 1969) refers to open systems crossed by flows of matter and energy, thus far from thermodynamic equilibrium. For Prigogine, it would make it possible to discuss the functioning of a living system. A dissipative structure would materialize a local order that is constantly renewed by a process fueled by the current that flows through it, and through which the organizational closure of this system takes place. And the interactions of such systems with a set of networks and structures, static or dissipative, would constitute the living network of an ecological system whose organization and structure would in turn condition the interactions between constituent systems.

The analysis of economic systems also reveals a number of structures. Let us consider, for example, the industrial sector, the business network, the PSS and the territorial functional ecosystem.

The linear structures of the industrial economy must be included in business networks of the industrial ecology and circular economy type, characterized by a closed-loop organization aimed at limiting the dissipation of matter-energy flow. A functional economy would make it possible to control this dissipation, in particular through PSSs set up during deliberative processes leading to a reduction in the dissipation of the flow of socioeconomic information. The idea of a functional territorial ecosystem can then refer to that of a “living” network of PSSs, consisting of structures that have the property of reducing the dissipation of energy, matter and information at the same time. And the organization of this network would condition both the interactions between PSSs and the internal interactions within these systems.

Consider, for example, the French political strategy of action for ecological transition mentioned in the introduction: it concerns the co-management of matter-energy flows and information on public and private investments. This strategy is based on the collective organization of representations of shared use value (that of common goods) to be maintained by territorial processes led by “responsible companies” (possibly beneficiaries of State investment). The latter are then invited to renew their business models, circularize their industrial bases and multiply their functional offers – thus restructuring the interactions between PSSs.

What inspired our DMCS approach is the need to renew the valuation systems in conjunction with the renewal of the physical and contractual structure. And the concept of entropy – if it is to be carefully applied to each of these levels of reality – makes it possible to bring together their representations around a unit of measurement: time.

This analogy between biological and economic systems has only a limited claim. However, it favors certain didactic proposals that make it possible to illustrate the mobilization of the concept of entropy in one and then the other of these realities.

In the field of thermodynamic physics, entropy can be considered as a measure of a contribution to a global “disorder” of matter, associated with an inability to mobilize an energy potential that has dissipated. The entropy principle is known as the second principle of thermodynamics⁹. Any transformation of an open thermodynamic system is accompanied by an increase in global entropy, i.e. the entropy of the system, as well as that of its environment (Carnot 1824; Clausius 1850). The irreversibility of this “disorder” and dissipation places physical reality in a temporality: from a thermodynamic point of view, entropy thus orients the “arrow of time”.

Georgescu-Roegen (1971) describes the objectified matter-energy flow at the scale of industrial production units in terms of entropy. Low entropy materials and energy potentials, such as oil or wood, are used, then returned to the natural environment as high entropy waste, i.e. disorganized and no longer giving the same energy potential. This flow, which is intrinsically entropic, also generates irreversible transformations in the global ecosystem. The result of the industrial process is therefore a local and global entropy that irreversibly impacts biological systems and the entire biosphere.

As we have argued, the dissipation of matter-energy flow by industrial production can, to some extent, be slowed down, or at least controlled, for example in the context of a PSS. This is conditional on a communication leading the actors to reorganize their representations of uses and to restructure the physical dimension of the productive apparatus.

However, a decrease in matter-energy flow is only significant if it is linked to other developments, such as those in ecosystems, or to mechanisms that make it possible to record this decrease in order to encourage the activities that operate it.

This state of dynamic stability, which results from a permanent materialization of the organization of the representations of “what is worth” in reconfiguration of the physical structure of production, can be qualified as socioeconomic negentropy.

We are inspired here by the concept of negative entropy – or negentropy – proposed by Schrödinger (1944ab) in the biochemical field as a description of a characteristic state of life. This neglectful state does not contradict the principle of entropy. Living organisms and ecosystems are open systems that exchange energy and matter with the global ecosystem and the universe. Their existence gives rise to a singularity of transformation of the entropic flow of energy and matter: locally, and temporarily, these organisms and ecosystems feed on them to renew their organization and structure.

This concept of socioeconomic negentropy echoes the notion of islets of rationality (Fourez 1994, p. 57) that we have associated in Chapter 3 with the deliberative processes and cooperative transactions that accompany the emergence of a functional ecosystem. Fourrez metaphorically describes these islets as “knowledge emerging in an ocean of ignorance”. From an economic point of view, capacities to anchor monetary representation in local evaluations – monetarization localities – can emerge from an ocean of nonspecific financial systematizations – financialization singularities.

Thus, the socioeconomic negentropy we describe does not run counter to the existence of the financial system, nor does biochemical negentropy contradict the principle of thermodynamic entropy. The flow of information resulting from the singularities of financialization is, as a whole, a dissipative flow of socioeconomic information, an entropic flow. But some systems, “living” from a socioeconomic point of view, are likely to feed on this flow, and transform it by anchoring financial work in a monetarization locality.

6.2.1.2. Residence time of the information in a system

In cybernetics, systems science and social sciences, the organization of systems and their physical structuring, resulting from the processing of information, is considered negative entropy – negentropy – synonymous with the cohesion strength of subsystems (Wiener 1950; Morin 1977).

The concept of negentropy can be declined according to the three levels of decoupling presented at the end Chapter 2 (see section 2.2.2.2). It is then synonymous with the cohesion strength of three subsystems of territorial economic information.

The organization and structuring of relations between territorial and financial actors, by encouraging the maintenance of monetarization localities necessary for anchoring financial investment, contribute to a negentropy of the socioeconomic system (third level of decoupling). The investment can then be refined. It is oriented toward services based on access to the use of functionalities, the selection of which is carried out through a dialogue between territorial and industrial actors, which leads to a negentropy of the sociotechnical system (second level of decoupling). The production methods of the physical goods whose layout will allow the selected functionalities are determined between territorial and industrial actors, in a dialogue on the compatibility between the pace of industrialization, matter-energy flows and negentropy of the biophysical system (first level of decoupling).

The DMCS assessment at three levels of decoupling would thus correspond to Morin’s (1977) proposal, for whom “conceiving information outside the negentropic organization is both an insufficient recognition of its physical reality and a source of confusion and reification. To conceive information in its physical fullness, it is not only necessary to consider its interactions with energy and entropy; it is not only necessary to consider negentropy and information together, it is necessary to consider information, negentropy and organization together, including information in negentropy and negentropy in the organization”.

This physical fullness of information leads to the conception of information as a unit with three positions, one related to its interactions with energy and entropy and the other to its influence on the negentropic organization – by analogy with the three positions of Luhmann’s Communication.

The evolution of the rhythms and intensities of the matter-energy flow, under the combined influence of industrial and biophysical–chemical processes, constitutes a single piece of information, composed and interpreted simultaneously and independently by the ecosystem and the sociosystem – each at the same time receiver and transmitter.

This is what the three levels of decoupling of the DMCS balance sheet can describe: a process of territorial economic communication around sustainable development issues.

From the ecosystem to the social system, biophysical information describing ecosystem processes (first level of decoupling) can be interpreted by the social system. By renewing its representations of the physical limits of the world and the ability to meet the needs of expressed utilities, it composes a sociotechnical information (second level of decoupling). The organization of relations between monetarization localities and financialization singularities, and their structuring in the sensitive realities of the world, i.e. in political deliberations where value judgments are made, produces socioeconomic information (third level of decoupling).

From the social system to the ecosystem, the socioeconomic information that governs the organization of business systems (third level of decoupling) is based on and feeds back into the sociotechnical information that determines the structure of industrial systems (second level of decoupling). The combination of these two levels induces an evolution of the matter-energy flow, whose rhythms and intensities influence biophysical information that modifies ecosystem processes (first level of decoupling).

The physical fullness of the information mentioned by Morin is anything but a view of the mind. A similar understanding can be achieved by mobilizing other work, such as that of Wilden (1972), for whom the process of organizing an ecological system is controlled by information and powered by energy; Passet (1979), for whom the notion of information-structure corresponds to an energy level structured by information; and O’Connor (1991), for whom energy is constituted by information.

These proposals are not antagonistic and are consistent with Popp’s (1986, 1989) proposal, which studies biological organization from the perspective of quantum physics. Popp (1989) argues that the order-generating dissipation of energy that characterizes living organisms takes the form of biological photons¹⁰ that produce “correlations in space and time, structures, rhythms” and in this way convey information.

It is such information, as well as all the information produced by changes in the structures and rhythms of living organisms and ecosystems, that we call biophysical information. They can and must be compared with the correlations in space and time, the structures and rhythms of the productive processes mobilized by the systems of the human economy.

The three levels of decoupling just mentioned have each been associated with an accounting balance sheet, i.e. assets and liabilities (see section 2.2.2.2). The analogy between ecological and economic systems nourished by the concept of negentropy now allows us to support this approach.

According to Capra (2003, pp. 178–179), a “life process” is the criterion that, together with organization and structure, characterizes a living system. Capra describes this process as “the activity that results from the continuous materialization of the system’s organizational pattern. Thus, the process criterion makes the link between the pattern and the structure” (ibid.). The quality of this process, which allows the existence of biophysical–chemical negentropy, i.e. the organized and potential throughput that the economy considers to be resources, is the core of “natural capital”, and any commitment necessary to maintain this process in its current state should be recorded as a liability in the first level of decoupling.

Here, we touch again on the central issue addressed throughout the previous chapters. The informational continuity necessary to enhance the value of production, considered in its ontology – in the combination of the five realities of work (see section 1.2.2.2) – requires consistency in the analysis of the three levels of decoupling.

Exchange value judgments made on third level decoupling assets (service contracts) depend on use value judgments made on second level assets (functionalities), which in turn depend on judgments made on both the intrinsic existence and use values of first level assets (physical assets).

Such dependence must be systematized by analyzing this balance sheet. The search for coherence in the integrated analysis of its three levels necessarily leads us to address the problem of measurement and its unity.

In a logic of historical costs – i.e. strong sustainability – the economic value must be based on that of the primary production at the scale of the Earth system, that is of ecosystems. A unit of value measurement at the first level of decoupling can be the residence time of energy in an ecological system, which Proops (1983) considers as a measure of the organization of that system.

But let us return to Popp (1989). He considers that “it is not necessary to imagine that any contribution of energy is enough to bring about an order from chaos. A system that does not already contain structures and/or for which structures are not imposed by boundary conditions and the type of energy supply, cannot build space–time structures either”. This approach echoes Passet’s (1979) approach mentioned above: a structural information corresponding to an energy level structured by information.

The level of energy dissipation in the ecosystem is related to how organizational information drives the process that drives its own structure; this is the “life process” described by Capra (2003). This process is fed by the energy flow, and at the same time this structuring – the change in system conformation induced by the process – in turn determines the level of this flow.

With reference to Luhmann’s Communication, this same flow of energy, composed by the rhythms and intensities of the processes that influence the structuring of living systems (position of information), i.e. by the arrangement of matter in the negentropy of life, is interpreted (position of expectation of success) by the sociotechnical system.

The interpretation of the biochemical conditions of emergence of this energy flow, represented by a couple [thermodynamic indicators – biophysical meta-information] then contributes to motivate circular economy and industrial ecology strategies, i.e. to renew organizational information. And the process of this renewal operates jointly the restructuring of the industrial system, thus the arrangement of matter during the production of physical goods, which, in turn, modulates the flow of energy through the sociotechnical system.

Referring again to the Luhmann Communication, the conditions for the emergence of this other energy flow, represented by a couple [socio-economic indicators – biophysical meta-information] (information position), must accompany within the territorial IS (communication position) the meeting of socioeconomic information and financial information in decision making (position of waiting for success).

Comparing living and economic systems thus leads to an understanding, without confusing them, of the plural positions and realities of information, whose interpretation determines the evolution of the same entropic dissipation of energy.

Thus, when it comes to addressing the coherence between socioeconomic valuation and the quality of functional coupling between sociotechnical and ecological systems, the measurement of the residence time of energy in an ecosystem does not come alone. It depends on the ability of the sociotechnical system to immobilize energy and produce information on its use value, as well as on the ability of the socioeconomic system to anchor monetarization localities as close as possible to the places where energy uses and resulting trade are represented – to limit the entropic attraction exercised by financialization singularities by placing them within a negentropic financing structure of the economy.

The reason for choosing an informative and cognitive balance sheet assessment is that it makes it possible to measure the potential length of residence of information within a social group; therefore, it measures a potential for coordination between spatial, organizational and institutional proximity, i.e. a potential for territory in the sense of Colletis et al. (2005) (see section 3.1.1.2) and the propensity of this potential territory to be part of a sustainable co-evolution between the systems that drive it – to which we have associated the notion of wealth (see section 1.2.2.1).

6.2.2.1. Living things do not hear anything about the economy

Morin (1977) distinguishes between generative information and circulating information, which he considers to be two “moments” rather than two kinds of information. According to Morin, generative information “evokes events precisely to cancel or thwart disruptive events that constantly occur from the outside or arise from the inside […]. Information generates an event, but transforms it into order and organization” (ibid.).

The three levels of negentropic decoupling presented above describe, in our opinion, three moments of the dissipation of economic information, corresponding to the biophysical, sociotechnical and socioeconomic components of this information, and the robustness of an economic analysis is characterized by the balance of their consideration. For example, it is important to know whether biophysical information will one day generate an event at the sociotechnical and socioeconomic levels, and what the nature of these events and their feedback on biophysical information will be.

A decrease in functional capacity within a biological ecosystem can result in the emission of information that only occurs within that ecosystem. If, on the other hand, this threshold is detected by the social system, the sociotechnical system can change its configuration, for example by adopting a more sober industrial production mode. The information then becomes an event at the interface between the first two levels of negative decoupling.

This event may be subject to a strict political assessment leading to a decision, and may be completely independent of monetary representations. It can also trigger the circulation of sociotechnical information related to the functionalities generated by the new production mode, and then induce an event at the interface with the socioeconomic system, for example a service contract.

Monetary representation is thus one of the moments of broader, indivisible information, whose flows and events drive the co-evolution of systems with indivisible organizational structures and closure processes.

For the representation of what has value at the socioeconomic level and what matters at the sociotechnical level to be consistent with that of what works at the ecosystem level, the analysis of spaces and times of organization and entropy specific to the ecosystem must be based on that of the spaces, and times of organization and entropy that characterize the economy, and not the reverse.

This is precisely what neoclassical economists do not understand. For example, the consideration of negative externalities can only begin when exceeding the critical threshold of certain ecosystem functions leads to a decrease in ecosystem service perceived as significant by market participants (Godard 2011, p. 51). This time lag between the irreversible disruption of an ecosystem by the economy and the consequences in terms of the availability of valuable services is sometimes reducible, but always inevitable. It is all the more problematic because while some externalities are static (specific, localized and sometimes reversible), others are dynamic and induce prolonged ecological effects, likely to diffuse and impact other ecosystems¹¹ (Pearce 1976).

In addition, the internalization of externalities would involve determining an appropriate allocation of property rights, so that victims can identify issuers and claim compensation (Dales 1968). It is questionable what knowledge would be the basis for a knowledge of natural processes appropriate for such an allocation, especially when actors are affected by the propagation of damage initially caused by others to ecosystems other than the one from which they obtain services.

Finally, monetarizing impacts implies a previous evaluation of these impacts. For the same reasons for the joint but differentiated evolution of ecosystems and the socio-technico-economic rationalities of the actors who objectify them, the internalization of externalities is and will always be biased by the possibility of choosing between the various methods of cost analysis to be internalized (Antheaume 1992, p. 2004).

Beyond the fundamental inadequacy of the theory of internalization of externalities with biophysical–chemical realities, its implementation through the use of the market as a tool is therefore a pious wish.

The purpose of this remark is to highlight an intrinsic limitation to the ambition of total control of sustainable development, or “absolute decoupling”, which must be recognized by neoclassicals. But it also applies to those who support the ecological and social economy. The three levels of decoupling, we propose echo to some extent Passet’s (1979) three-sphere model (see section 1.2.1.1), which describes economic activities as a subsystem of human activities that are themselves a component of the global ecosystem.

These three levels are not only intertwined like “Russian dolls”, but interconnected in a representation of reality, a dynamic and complex systemic representation, loaded with hypotheses and therefore subjectivity, and which has the specificity of emerging from one of the three systems it describes: the social system. Moreover, however elaborate and rigorous it may be, a model will always be nourished by information derived from an intersubjective consensus – the first of which is driven by the ideology of the modeler who defines the information in question, another by that of the evaluator in charge of producing it.

It is therefore fundamental to accept and always keep in mind that no one will ever have access to the trans-subjective realities of what drives living systems, but that we can always improve the way we produce the concepts and models that organize the territorial space of intersubjective information.

To evaluate, in a perspective of sustainable development, then amounts to “visually navigating in fog and as close as possible to the coast”, with cognition as the driving force and a relative control of indeterminacy as a rudder.

If, on the one hand, for Mathieu (2002) “the cognitive domain (all the possible interactions determined by the structure of the system) increases with the complexity of the living system, it goes without saying that human organizations (very complex living systems) have an almost unlimited cognitive domain”. On the other hand, minor events or changes at the microscopic or environmental levels can be decisive for all patterns of a system’s behavior, and indeterminacy is therefore irreducible (O’Connor 1991).

Rather than speaking of “absolute decoupling”, we will speak of a “margin of manoeuvre” within an interpretation space in which irreducible indetermination and the potential for unlimited but degradable cognition will always coexist.

An economy that is potentially compatible with sustainable development must then organize together different representations of reality. And this is what led us to propose the use of a contributory web system likely to organize several methods together, in order to support the actors who support them in the collective construction of sociotechnical organization strategies.

The proposed system, ePLANETe.Blue (see section 3.2.1), uses the KerBabel^TM tool suite. We had the opportunity to describe how it works (deliberation matrix, indicator kiosk, representation grid and multi-criteria performance evaluation algorithm).

This suite of tools is inspired by the INTEGRAAL^TM approach (O’Connor 2006), which is specifically dedicated to sustainability analysis. INTEGRAAL^TM articulates, on the one hand, the understanding and representation of the situation of a complex problem, and, on the other hand, the evaluation in order to give meaning to the representation of the problem.

It thus invites a discursive journey “to assess the adequacy of scientific knowledge in situations of high and irreducible uncertainty through broad deliberative processes” (van der Sluijs et al. 2008a). As we illustrated by introducing the ePLANETe.Blue portal, this journey leads to the mobilization of a certain diversity of tools, methods, knowledge, points of view, perspectives, scales, temporalities, challenges, situations to be evaluated, etc. INTEGRAAL^TM is then qualified not only as an approach, but as a meta-method – the meta prefix refers to a level of abstraction higher than that of direct apprehension of field study objects.

INTEGRAAL^TM is divided into six steps:

• – identify the problem (describe the problem, the territory, the project, the scales, the beneficiaries, the partners, etc.);
• – structure the problem (define the categories of actors, performance issues and alternatives through an iterative process of documentation and appropriation of the problem studied, based in particular on consultation of the actors concerned);
• – represent the system (identify and mobilize tools to represent the system within which the problem arises);
• – evaluate and deliberate (evaluate alternatives from a multi-criteria, multi-stakeholder perspective);
• – analyze and communicate (communication of study results and recommendations);
• – question the results and start again (identify the remaining problem, and start the cycle again).

6.2.2.2. Counting in a moving frame

To conclude this last chapter, we propose to apply INTEGRAAL^TM to the situation of interest to us: territorial economic Communication with a view to sustainable development.

6.2.2.2.3. Step 3: Representing the system by identifying and mobilizing appropriate tools

We will quickly move on to this step, considering that all the tools described in this book can be used to describe the system, and we will therefore simply represent it here in a synoptic way.

DMCS thus results in indexing the value of the entities’ capital to the state of the commons, which are the ecosystemic, sociotechnical and socioeconomic functions that support a territory’s activity.

To summarize the approach, it is a question of modulating the actuarial assumptions and accounting depreciation practices according to the consistency of the meta-information that feeds the views on the same set of performance indicators at the various stages of the enhancement process.