Supporting environmental innovation and intrapreneurship: time to Scale up!

Launched back in 2020, the VINCI Environment Awards are pursuing the Group’s clear ambition of sharpening its competitive edge and nurturing high-potential solutions to shrink the environmental impact of its activities and business units. The overriding theme for the 2024 edition - “local solutions, global impact” - struck a remarkable chord with VINCI’s employees, since some 1,000 entries had been received by the time the deadline for applications closed. Following a stringent selection process, 12 initiatives were chosen in December 2024 for their excellence. The common denominator with all the winning solutions is their ability to create a strong impact on the environment combined with their real commercial potential. To scale up the chosen solutions, VINCI has designed the Scale up! programme to provide every support to the twelve award winners and also seven equally promising projects that were awarded during the regional stages. Above all, the scheme’s strength lies in the sheer scale of the means and resources that VINCI has committed to the chosen solutions. This investment clearly reflects the Group’s confidence in its employees and the potential of their ideas.

The Scale up! programme is powered by an approach that harnesses collective intelligence, where every project leader benefits from two coaches who are responsible for driving and bringing methodology to the solutions that they are supporting while drawing on the necessary internal and external resources to develop and successfully roll out the solutions. A “business” coach guides the teams in improving their value proposition and consolidating their business model, from conducting market research through to supporting commercial development. At the same time, an “environment” coach assists the teams in reinforcing the environmental value of their solutions using a robust range of verifiable tools, as well as designing a convincing evidence-based environmental communication strategy. “The weekly sessions with our coaches are key to helping us move forward with our solutions and acquiring new skills. The startup approach used by our business coach has opened up a whole new range of prospects when it comes to the methodology for scaling up the solution,” explains Philippe Gaborit, Environment Manager at VINCI Autoroutes and award winner for the South-West region for the solution entitled “Ecological enhancement operator”.

Above all, every project is supported by a mentor and a sponsor. Mentors tend to be chosen from the project leader’s chain of command and are responsible for providing daily guidance, offering advice and delivering operational support. Meanwhile, sponsors oversee the solution’s deployment and ensure that it is in line with the Group’s environmental policy. This support structure enables the project teams, which often comprise engineers, to rise to the challenges inherent in scaling up, such as developing a viable business model, effectively packaging their solutions and promoting their dual economic and environmental impact. As Pascale Dumez, Deputy General Director of Sixense, explains: “As researchers, we need to learn how to adapt our pitch to the people we’re talking to about our solution by highlighting its benefits.” The support offered with the Scale up! programme also includes market research, which is essential for targeting the right customers and standing out from the competition.

The programme may only be in its early stages, but all the parties involved are unanimous in saying that the Scale up! programme amplifies and brings a new dimension to the driving force created by the Environment Awards. The programme proves to the project leaders that there is a lot more to the Group’s commitment than simply offering an accolade in recognition of their solution. “They give us time, an invaluable network and the considerable resources within the Group. These three aspects are often the main stumbling blocks for a conventional startup. But with this programme, we get it all!” says Philippe Gaborit, Environment Manager at VINCI Autoroutes. This commitment is born out of the Group’s conviction that a grassroots approach is key to pioneering the environmental solutions of tomorrow’s world. As Pierre Anjolras, Chief Executive Officer of VINCI, explained to the project leaders: “We have high hopes in you, because we’re convinced that many of these solutions promise to improve our business lines’ excellent track record in increasing safety, enhancing productivity, differentiating our products and services, and addressing the issues relating to the climate emergency.” Now it is down to Scale up! to help the project leaders deliver on their promises!