Road construction and maintenance activities
VINCI Autoroutes’ programme management division is rolling out its decarbonisation strategy across all its works activities. Its measures saved an estimated 35,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2023, lowering carbon intensity by around 20%. Carbon intensity was reduced by more than 30% on several projects, such as the worksite to replace the A7 motorway bridge in Bourg-lès-Valence. The environmental work methods enabled 100% of the demolished bridge to be recycled and avoided nearly 600 tonnes of CO2 equivalent for the concrete used on the new structure. Several decarbonisation measures were taken on the project to build a new interchange on the A10 north of the Orléans metropolitan area, including the use of recycled steel, low carbon concrete, road binder made from ground slag to replace clinker in the subgrade, reuse of materials, and recycled asphalt mix in road surfaces, all of which helped to reduce the worksite’s greenhouse gas emissions.
VINCI Construction’s Road France Division is at the forefront of the most efficient solutions for reducing the carbon footprint of products containing bitumen. These include cold mix asphalt, in situ recycling, the use of low carbon energy sources for asphalt plants and the reduction of freight emissions, which can reduce worksite emissions by 50%. Following on from its Granulat+ programme to reduce the impacts associated with the use of materials (see paragraph 3.3.3, “Developing recycling solutions”, page251), the Road France Division of VINCI Construction is working to limit the impacts linked to the transportation of these materials through actions in several areas: optimising the distances travelled, ensuring the widespread adoption of covered trucks, investment in internal B100 refuelling systems, setting up two way freight flows more systematically between production sites, transforming materials and works procedures, etc. An initiative is also under way with transport providers to promote the use of more efficient, less polluting means of transport.
The development of VINCI Construction’s innovative Ogêo brand is another step towards the commercialisation of recycled aggregates in France. Outside France, investment in new production facilities (Lithuania, Spain, Canada, etc.) enables VINCI Construction to gain a lead in the commercialisation of recycled materials and to make a commitment to its customers in this strategic path.
As part of the drive to reduce emissions, the Group is reengineering its construction processes to limit the quantities of materials required or to enable materials with lower emissions or recycled components to be used (see paragraph 3.3.1, “Promoting the use of techniques and materials that economise on natural resources”, page 246). At VINCI Construction’s Major Projects Division, the Environment in Design (EiD) approach takes into account environmental issues right from the initial design phase. For the High Speed 2 (HS2) project in the United Kingdom, the consortium has pledged to reduce emissions by 50% compared with the initial carbon footprint throughout the life cycle of the structure (design, construction, operation and maintenance), by using the life cycle assessment method. The City Rail Link project in New Zealand has set very high environmental targets, i.e. to reduce the energy used in construction and operation by 25% and the carbon footprint by 15%. Performance is monitored by comparing operational data every month with forecasts determined using building information modelling (BIM). In 2023, Soletanche Freyssinet (VINCI Construction) calculated that design optimisations saved overall 8,000 tonnes of concrete and 5,700 tonnes of steel.
Another way to reduce emissions is by reorganising how worksites operate. On the Thames Tideway East project, VINCI Construction used waterways to transport excavated soils and reinforcement cages instead of roads, thereby avoiding 250,000 return trips by truck and reducing carbon emissions by 18,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, for a positive impact on air quality.
Reducing downstream impacts
To reduce the impacts relating to the use of structures built and operated by the Group, VINCI is developing new offers and solutions in two main areas: low carbon mobility and the energy transition for buildings and infrastructure.
Low carbon mobility
Mobility is a core feature of the various activities covered by VINCI, which harnesses its expertise to help create innovative and sustainable transport infrastructure (see paragraph 3.1.3, “Market opportunities from the environmental transition”, page 229).
The Alliance pour la Décarbonation de la Route (Alliance for Road Decarbonisation), which was initiated in December 2023 by François Gemenne, Professor at HEC Paris and Sciences Po and a lead author for the IPCC, Patrice Geoffron, Professor of Economics at Université Paris Dauphine, and Géraud Guibert, Chairman of La Fabrique Écologique, brings together a range of actors focused on the need to decarbonise road transport, including academic researchers, local authorities, non-profits and businesses, to design and implement effective solutions in this area. In doing so, it recognises this transition as a crucial step towards meeting GHG reduction targets. This initiative emphasises cooperation with public authorities and targets technological and behavioural strategies, such as shifting towards electric vehicles and promoting alternative modes of transport, to achieve a decarbonisation outcome that is both socially and economically viable.
In 2021, VINCI Autoroutes and the consultancy Altermind developed a detailed model of realistic solutions for decarbonising motorways, which was the subject of the report “Décarboner l’autoroute : une urgence écologique” (Decarbonising motorways: an ecological emergency). Since then, some measures have been implemented on the motorway network, including solutions linked to reducing emissions (electric vehicles, hydrogen vehicles, etc.), transforming practices and coordinating means of transport (development of intermodality and appropriate infrastructure). VINCI Autoroutes also pledged to equip all service areas across its network with charge points for electric vehicles by 2023, with half to be high-powered devices. That target was surpassed in 2023, with 86% of the approximately 1,621 charge points in total making use of high-power charging (HPC) technology across the network. Mobile EV charging stations have been tested under the low-carbon motorway agreements to supplement charging station capacity to handle any high traffic peaks. In addition, the Ulys Electric pass from VINCI Autoroutes provides users with access to almost all charge points throughout France. The offering was adopted by 50,000 users and tallied 220,000 charges in 2023.
