To measure the Group’s performance in achieving its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from 2018 to 2030, an initial trajectory is being used as a baseline. Each business line has its own initial emissions reduction trajectory for 2030, based on the environmental commitments it has made and the intensity of its carbon reduction initiatives. Each year, the progress made is measured and the percentage by which actual emissions must still be reduced by 2030 is recalculated. This figure is based on two quantities (based on energy consumption data from the Group’s environmental reporting), which are actual direct greenhouse gas emissions for the past year, and actual emissions from changes in scope (acquisitions and disposals in the reporting scope) for the past year.
The progress made is measured for each business line, by applying the percentage of emissions remaining to be reduced by the business line to the cumulative emissions attributable to changes in scope for the past year (the sum of emissions from acquisitions, less the sum of emissions from the business line’s disposals). For example, consider an acquisition in year Y, included in environmental reporting in year Y+1. The emissions trajectory of this acquisition to 2030 is calculated by applying the percentage of emissions remaining to be reduced from the acquiring business line to the emissions of this acquisition in year Y+1. The acquisition is therefore included in the same trajectory as the acquiring business line.
The achievements of each business line are then consolidated to determine the progress along the trajectory made by the Group as a whole. Progress towards the Group’s target is thus measured each year by comparing the initial baseline with the performance achieved.
To calculate Scope 3 emissions for 2022, the recommendations published by Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) in its Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions (version 1.0) were followed. Of the 15 categories of emissions identified by GHG Protocol, 11 were considered to be relevant to the Group (four downstream categories were excluded: downstream transportation and distribution, processing of sold products, downstream leased assets, and franchises). For some business activities, additional categories were excluded from reporting due to their lack of relevance to the business activity being assessed: VINCI Construction’s Building France Division did not take into account the downstream emissions of built infrastructures that do not directly consume energy, and the business line’s Road France and Networks France divisions did not measure downstream emissions. Where appropriate, some business lines applied other, more detailed industry-specific standards. This was the case for VINCI Airports, which followed the recommendations of the Airport Carbon Accreditation; VINCI Autoroutes, which used the tools provided by the Association of French Motorway Companies (Asfa); and VINCI Immobilier, which applied the standard set by the French environmental regulation for new buildings, RE2020.
To calculate the indicator for greenhouse gas emissions by motorway users, using Asfa’s tool, VINCI Autoroutes included all the kilometres in its network, whether toll or free roads, travelled by users during the financial year. The velocity profile per vehicle class used was the default 130 km/h profile pre-configured in the tool. Traffic was assumed to be 100% fluid; the effect of radars was not included in the calculation. The influence zone of toll collection was assumed to be 0.1 km. The entire network was also assumed to be an intercity network.
The quantification work undertaken by the Group was hampered by difficulties in applying the existing guidelines to VINCI’s business activities and by complexities due to the breadth and diversity of its business mix. To overcome these obstacles, VINCI supplemented the GHG Protocol’s guidance with its own guidelines on specific aspects of the methodology, to be applied across the Group. These made certain adjustments to account for specific situations. For example, for VINCI’s works activity, the depreciation rule for machinery was adapted to reflect the reality on the ground and the available data. For VINCI Highways activities, a rule was applied to only calculate emissions from consolidated entities operating as concession holders.
Whenever possible, Group entities used actual data to calculate the emissions associated with their business activities. However, due to the complexity and diversity of these activities, some entities chose to apply ratios for a given business or to extrapolate from a representative sample of data to obtain an initial order of magnitude. For example, VINCI Energies worked out a kgCO₂eq/€ ratio for each of its purchasing categories, drawing data from the 9,157 environmental and health product declarations (FDES) and product environment profiles (PEPs) that were available in 2020. A specialised outside firm then checked the ratios, which were adjusted for inflation. In 2022, VINCI expanded the scope covered by actual and estimated data to improve data reliability. Overall, 50% of Scope 3 emissions were based on actual data. The overall uncertainty of the resulting Scope 3 data is estimated to be between 20% and 30%.
In choosing emission factors (EFs), the same rules are applied across the Group. Where several EFs are available for the same category of emissions, entities are to give preference to the EF that is the most specific (for example, obtained from FDES, PEP or other Type III environmental declarations, supplier data, a professional organisation or an industry trade union), the most reliable (having been calculated or audited by an expert and/or drawn from industry-specific or institutional guidelines), and the most recent (since EFs are updated on a regular basis). Where such emission factors are not available, default EFs in a database produced by VINCI are used. These are “average” EFs based on the main, widely recognised databases. If the desired EF cannot be found in the VINCI database, specific EFs are sourced from other documentation, mainly the Base Carbone® database managed by the French environment and energy management agency, Ademe, or the Ecoinvent database.
The Scope 3 emissions of some Group entities may be double counted, due to services being purchased from or subcontracted to other Group entities. These emissions were measured and deducted from the Group’s total during the consolidation phase using the following method: a ratio of Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions per million euros of revenue was calculated for each business line for the current year, using Scope 1, 2 and 3 data from the Group’s environmental reporting. For each business line, emissions corresponding to purchases made from VINCI entities were measured by applying the ratio for the “selling” business line to the amount of all purchases made from that business line.
VINCI’s first assessment of the amount of its eligible and aligned activities, as defined under the EU Taxonomy Regulation, was performed within each business line and based on a detailed analysis of its activities, taking into account existing processes, reporting systems and management assumptions. The percentages of eligible and aligned activities were calculated at 30 September 2022 and applied to the Group’s revenue and CapEx at 31 December 2022, except for VINCI Autoroutes, which recalculated its percentages of eligible activities at 31 December 2022.
