Alisée, co-founder of Mollow : "I want to inspire rather than guilt-trip."

It takes a lot of courage to bang your fist, on LinkedIn, against a tourism industry that pollutes too much, a male-dominated inner circle in our institutions and government decisions that are too timid, at the age of 24. But if the Minister of the Economy needs to be given a dressing-down to transform travel, Alisée Pierrot won't be shy! Meet the co-founder of Mollow, a platform determined (as ever) to decarbonize tourism.

Hello Alisée! Could you please tell us a bit about yourself?

I'm 24 years old and the co-founder of Mollow, a platform that aims to facilitate low-carbon travel and sustainable mobility. I studied generalengineering, particularly abroad. I gradually developed an environmental conscience. Definitely, increasing the productivity of a large company was not what I wanted.

This questioning led me to choose a Master's degree in sustainable development, as I really wanted to link my technical skills with theclimate emergency. I thought I'd found it by working in CSR for a large group, but I was frustrated not to be able to see theimpact of my actions. I knew that a small project with a big impact was made for me.

I met Chiara, who was looking for beta-testers for Mollow. The project spoke to me enormously and I quickly joined her in developing it.

Today, Mollow is **+100 destinations accessible without plane or car **in France and Europe, and +35,000 users every month!

"In the beginning, giving up flying was like mourning.

**You created Mollow to "reinvent our imaginations of travel, and propose a positive vision of sobriety": why? **

I traveled a lot on my own, to ten or so European countries, because I was part of an engineering students' association. These trips gave me a great deal of personal nourishment, helping me to understand who I was and, ultimately, to understand others. But they also raised my ecological awareness. So I made the decision** to stop flying**.

At first, it was a bit of a mourning process, as I had the feeling that I would no longer be able to indulge this passion. Mollow helped me understand that it was possible to travel differently, especially by train. I remembered the vacations in France that I'd loved as a child, often in the Alps.

It was in realizing this that I realized we needed to reinvent our imaginations of travel. I understood that to convince people, we had to inspire them, not just make them feel guilty.

The magic of the aurora borealis in Sweden_.

**What's your favorite train trip? **

Swedish Lapland, on my first night train. It was a crazy atmosphere because I was with all my Erasmus friends. It's a relatively long journey. We left at 5pm and arrived at 10am. The whole time, it was pitch black. We disembarked in the middle of nowhere. On the quay, there was already several meters of snow. Three hours later, we were staying with the Sami, the indigenous people of Lapland, waiting for the Aurora Borealis, in a garden populated by reindeer. In short, it was exceptional!

"On a bike, you are the master of your own adventure".

What's your best cycling trip?

I'm still a novice when it comes to bike travel, but I grew up in a** family that was a fan of road and mountain biking**. Above all, I was nurtured by all those simple trips to the Alps, which were*crazy adventures* for me. I remember vacations when I was 7, when we'd set off with our six bikes on the roof of the car. For me, cycling to the lake was an adventure in itself!

In retrospect, I think these vacations are just as fantastic as when you go to the other side of the world. You feel free, in control of your own adventure, proud of your accomplishment. What's more, cycling is accessible to all ages! As proof, my parents took up bikepacking at the age of 65 to combine their love of sport and nature!

What role does cycling play in Mollow's mission?

For me, cycling is the **best "adventure/carbon footprint" ratio. **It's Mollow's mission to reduce the impact of transport, mobility and tourism. Yes, with a bike, you don't go very far, but the carbon footprint is almost 0. As soon as you get on a bike, it's already a small journey.

For example, I recently discovered the **Baie de Somme **by renting a bike for a weekend. It was a two-day break, ultra-disorientating. I didn't think about anything, just pedaling. It cost me next to nothing, but I came back with a lot of beautiful memories.

"In Flemish Belgium and the Netherlands, bike rental systems are accessible and very simple".

How do bicycle travel and rail travel complement each other from a sustainable tourism perspective?

I think the most likely perspective is that of the last mile. We can already reach a large number of cities by train. But the vast majority of people live far from these cities. So, once you've arrived at the station, you need to be able to get to your holiday or leisure destination in a low-carbon way. Cycling is the answer.

The problem is that today, it's still very complicated to take your bike on the train, not only because there isn't enough room in the carriages, but also because arriving at the station remains complex.

However, I have observed some interesting solutions in **Flemish **Belgium and the Netherlands. There are very simple and accessible systems for renting a quality bike, even for several days, directly at the station. Why not duplicate this in France?

How can imagination revolutionize the tourism industry?

I think it's THE key to revolutionizing travel. Even today, when people think of the word, they systematically think offine sand, airplanes, turquoise waters and far-off places.

This imagination is created by the images we see all day long, through the media, influencers and advertising. As a Greenpeace study recently demonstrated. The tourism industry is therefore highly polluting. It accounts for 11% of France's carbon footprint, largely due to transport, particularlyair travel. And yet, what is tourism? It's about gettingaway from it all, indulging oneself, satisfying our imaginations.

So if we manage to replace these imaginations with stories of closer travel, **longer **time, simpler things, longer in one and the same place, doing new activities, it's going to turn everything upside down. The tourism industry is simply responding to demand.

"Things are changing. In three years' time, we'll be in a completely different reality.

Italy's shimmering colors

Are you feeling optimistic about this mission?

It depends on the day. Sometimes I can see that things are changing, not least because I'm lucky enough to discover new and innovative initiatives, with both small and large budgets.

But when I meet the big world of tourism, I realize that there's still a long way to go. When I hear, for example, that we need to push fair trade tourism to the farthest reaches of Africa, because it helps local populations and is virtuous, when we know that it's not sustainable to make long-haul round trips every year, it scares me.

That said, over the last two years, there's been a craze for the crazy train. I'm a great believer in the snowball effect, and in three years' time, we'll be in a different reality.

"Yesterday, night trains were scary. Today, it's a big hit!

What concrete evidence is there that things are changing?

Only five years ago, the SNCF *wanted tostop all night trains*. It took the gamble of relaunching a majority of them in 2021, and in 2022 and 2023, these are the trains on which ridership is *increasing* the most, by far! Today, night trains are almost all *full* 🔥. It's a trip that makes a lot of people dream, whereas only yesterday it was frightening, including my own parents...

In Sweden, where Alisée lived to study engineering

How can we change these imaginations?

Advertising, of course, on both the industry and celebrity sides. For example, all the communication around rugby teams taking the train was very powerful, even if in terms of environmental impact, it had little impact. People say to themselves: Look, my favorite celebrity is taking the train to France, instead of saying look at me in my jet to Dubai, that'll change everything". _

And then there's monsieur tout le monde, you, me, the others. There's nothing more powerful than your buddy who makes you dream by telling you about his incredible trip to the farthest reaches of Austria in the mountains by train and bike. You identify with it, it makes you want to... Inspiring people with positive ideas is very powerful, if you want real change, which, if you follow Greenpeace's figures, means flying only a few times in your life.

"I believe in the power of positive inspiration, but we can't do without regulation in the face of urgency".

Do you think we'll be able to do without legal regulations if we manage to convince the masses through imagination?

Unfortunately, I don't think that will be enough in the face of the climate emergency. It's a very complex subject, because it raises the question of social justice. What about a Frenchman, for example, who can't visit his ailing mother on the other side of the world? How do you judge which flights are really important and which are less so?

What's your proudest achievement with Mollow?

To have created a large community of decarbonized travelers who show that it's possible and enjoyable to travel differently. When I meet people who tell me they've traveled to Italy by train thanks to Mollow, I think that's great.

Do you have a message you'd like to pass on?

I'd like to stay on ahopeful note. Trains and bicycles are exploding. We're seeing a lot more of them, people want them, and some government promises have been made. A budget of 100 billion for the railways, the Rail Pass, by next summer. It's far from ideal, but it's already a very** good first step**.

Music for big bike descents: Viva La Vida - Coldplay

Music for uphill cycling: Temperature - Sean Paul

A book to discover sustainable travel: Le monde en hitch, by Ludovic Hubler (Le monde en hitch, by Ludovic Hubler) (not totally decarbonized, but focused on slow travel and encounters!)