Title tag: Circular Subscriptions and ESG Metrics: Yohann Assoune

Meta description: Arkane Cloud CSO Yohann Assoune on when subscriptions are truly circular, how partnerships scale sustainability and how to tie ESG metrics to finance.

The New Triple Bottom Line: Subscription Models, Partnerships and Sustainable Metrics

Interview with Yohann Assoune | Chief Sales Officer, Arkane Cloud | 20+ years in sales, channel development and business growth across SaaS, cloud and cybersecurity | Sustainable Transition Management, HEC Paris

Published: April 24, 2025 · Last reviewed: [fecha]. Updated to reflect the 2026 changes to the EU's CSRD and to add sources.

Disclosure: Yohann Assoune is a shareholder in Team for the Planet, which is mentioned in this article.

A subscription is not a circular business model. It is a way of charging. Yohann Assoune, Chief Sales Officer at European sovereign AI cloud provider Arkane Cloud, has spent more than 20 years in sales, channel development and growth across SaaS, cloud and cybersecurity. He argues that sustainability only shows up in the numbers when companies redesign products, partnerships and financial metrics together.

Subscription, Product-as-a-Service and Circularity Are Not the Same Thing

Three ideas often get blended, and Assoune separates them:

• Subscription is a payment model. The customer pays a recurring fee, and the product may or may not come back to the provider.
• Product-as-a-service goes further. The provider keeps ownership and sells the outcome, such as computing capacity, mobility or light, which gives it a direct incentive to make products last, repair them and recover them.
• Circularity is the goal those models can serve: keeping products and materials in use at their highest value through reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing and recycling.

A subscription only becomes circular when it is designed around that goal. "Subscription models are truly effective when they maintain the customer lifecycle, guiding them to a new level, not just capturing them," Assoune says. That means encouraging reuse, refurbishment and responsible upgrades rather than locking customers into recurring payments, and rethinking the value chain and the organization behind it.

Technology helps. AI-powered predictive analytics and IoT tracking let companies monitor use, schedule maintenance and extend product life. In IT, HPE's GreenLake offering is one example of the product-as-a-service approach: customers pay for infrastructure capacity as they use it, while HPE retains ownership of the hardware and can refurbish and redeploy it.

No Company Can Do This Alone

Sustainability is a systemic problem, so partnerships across companies and sectors are essential. "Partnerships allow companies to share resources, mitigate risks and bring expertise together to solve complex sustainability challenges," Assoune says.

He cites examples such as French neobank Green-Got's work with climate-data provider Carbon4 Finance to assess the sustainability of investment funds, and WWF's partnerships with HSBC and the World Resources Institute (WRI) to scale climate solutions and fund biodiversity work.

Partnerships also help with culture. Sustainability strategies built on one region's assumptions often fail elsewhere. Assoune argues that local partners are what make an initiative fit the values, needs and practices of each market, which builds trust and makes outcomes last.

They are not frictionless. Different priorities and risk appetites slow progress, so he recommends clear objectives and measurable KPIs from the start. "You can accelerate progress on complex topics by leveraging shared expertise, talent and knowledge while distributing risks. This approach enables faster product launches, facilitates easier market entry, and becomes regenerative and distributive by design."

Greenwashing Is a Growth Risk

Greenwashing, misleading people about how sustainable a company is, damages trust with customers, investors and regulators. "Using sustainability as a marketing gimmick without real action will alienate customers and harm long-term growth," Assoune warns.

His safeguards:

• Third-party certifications such as B Corp or EcoVadis
• Public disclosure of environmental metrics in sustainability reports
• Messaging that matches operations, from supply chain to the executive team

"Authenticity is key. A company's sustainability efforts should be backed by measurable progress, clear communication and a willingness to acknowledge challenges." He points to Team for the Planet, a French company in which he is a shareholder, which raises money from a community of more than 130,000 shareholders to fund innovations against greenhouse gas emissions, such as Beyond the Sea's towing kites for cargo ships.

Put Sustainability in the Spreadsheet

Sustainability only lasts when it is part of financial planning. "Financial integration of sustainable metrics is critical. By embedding sustainability accounting into cost-benefit analyses, firms can quantify the ROI of sustainability initiatives, securing buy-in from investors and executives," Assoune says. Carbon-accounting platforms that connect to existing ERP systems, such as Plan A, can help measure the real cost and benefit.

Incentives matter as much as accounting. "If your incentives reward short-term sales rather than sustainable growth, employees will act accordingly." Moving sales teams from a transactional to a consultative approach, with sustainability part of the value proposition, is one example.

The direction of travel is visible in corporate data. According to the KPMG Survey of Sustainability Reporting 2024, 96% of the world's 250 largest companies report on sustainability, and 41% link sustainability targets to leadership pay.

Regulation Narrowed, Expectations Did Not

Voluntary frameworks such as GRI and SASB remain widely used. In the EU, mandatory reporting under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) was narrowed in 2026: the Omnibus I directive limited it to EU companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than €450 million in net turnover. Many smaller companies are no longer required to report, but customers, lenders and investors may still ask them for sustainability data.

Assoune's broader argument draws on Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics: businesses should aim to thrive within social and ecological limits rather than chase endless growth. Companies such as Patagonia and Nnormal, which design for durability and encourage repair over replacement, show in his view that the strategy can pay off. "Sustainability isn't just a trend. It's imperative."

Assoune's Three Levers

1. Subscription and product-as-a-service models, designed for circularity, build long-term customer relationships.
2. Strategic partnerships spread risk and speed up the deployment of sustainable solutions.
3. Sustainability metrics in financial decisions align profitability with environmental impact.

Yohann Assoune is Chief Sales Officer at Arkane Cloud, a Lyon-based provider of sovereign AI infrastructure offering GPU and models as a service. He has more than 20 years of experience in sales, channel development and business growth across SaaS, cloud, cybersecurity and digital services, and completed the Sustainable Transition Management program at HEC Paris. He is also a shareholder and active supporter of Team for the Planet.

Sources

• KPMG, Survey of Sustainability Reporting 2024
• CSRD after Omnibus I, Directive (EU) 2026/470
• Ellen MacArthur Foundation, circular economy
• Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics (2017)

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