A foresight research group from the Leonard innovation platform focused on climate resilience has been active since 2018 and began working on climate change adaptation in 2023. Its panel represents VINCI’s various activities, with support from Resallience, VINCI’s engineering and design office focused on climate resilience that works on adapting projects, cities, regions, infrastructure and their uses to climate change.
Resallience and Sixense (VINCI Construction) operate a number of useful software programmes to determine potential corrosion in reinforced concrete structures, measure the urban heat island effect, predict and visualise flooding in cities and urban areas prone to flooding, and assess the cost of climate change for infrastructure. Building on this experience, Resallience developed the ResiLens tool for VINCI, which assesses infrastructure vulnerability to physical hazards described in IPCC scenario SSP5-8.5. This system provides a visualisation of current and future climate hazards and a pre-project evaluation of current and future VINCI infrastructure and business activities. Based on that cross-analysis, it then suggests design solutions to improve the resilience of the projects under threat. Resallience also saw strong growth in its engineering and design services in 2023, which focused on support for climate change policy. Monitoring projects were led to analyse the impact of climate change on infrastructure, regions and cities, such as the satellite data study for the Oakland City Council in California (United States) on the shrinkage and swelling of clay soils.
Since 2008, the VINCI-ParisTech lab recherche environnement has supported some 75 PhD and post-doctoral projects that have contributed scientific knowledge on the adaptation of buildings and infrastructure. This research includes models of the urban micro-climate on surfaces and in the air, with or without green surfaces, and forecasting building temperatures to 2050 and 2100 depending on the type of building: 19th-century Haussmann style, 1960s low-cost housing, recent low-energy apartment blocks, positive-energy buildings.
An e-learning module was released to help Group employees become familiar with the concept of resilience and understand the resilience challenges of Group businesses and its customers’ businesses. To date, 147 employees have completed this training. The Group is also carrying out significant research internally and with its scientific partners on issues such as adapting neighbourhoods to heatwaves, managing the urban heat island effect, flood prevention, etc. In 2023, 73 people at VINCI were trained on how to use the ResiLens tool.
The business lines are also working to further strengthen the resilience of their activities. In 2023, VINCI Concessions continued its climate change vulnerability analysis of entities in its network, now covering a total of 80. The first stage in this analysis involved developing a vulnerability study methodology and then carrying out an initial assessment at the macro level to determine the main risks for the concessions studied. In the second stage, a more detailed analysis was carried out for the entities with the highest exposure to understand the impact of these risks on the infrastructure. Technical teams were then able to ascertain any relevant mitigation measures that could be taken to adapt the infrastructure and the required investments. At VINCI Airports, this analysis is factored into the airports’ long- term business plans, along with Scope 1, 2 and 3 CO2 equivalent emissions and the investments needed to successfully implement the decarbonisation strategy (AirPact). All climate forecasts are taken into account to calculate the historical baseline. For the 2030 and 2050 baselines, the two global warming scenarios used are SSP2-4.5 (estimated rise of 2.7°C by the end of the century) and SSP5-8.5 (high emissions, no additional climate policies). Furthermore, ANA (Portugal) has extended the vulnerability study to include an adaptation plan, which is currently being finalised for Faro airport. It plans to extend the studies for the rest of the network in the years to come. Since the creation of ResiLens, VINCI Concessions’ new development projects systematically undergo a preliminary vulnerability analysis before being subjected to a more in-depth examination if necessary.
A climate resilience study was launched in 2021 for the South Europe Atlantic high-speed rail line using the methodology described in the Cerema paper “Vulnérabilités et risques : les infrastructures de transport face au climat” (Vulnerability and risks: transport infrastructure and climate change). The climate scenarios applied in the study were RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5. The results of the study showed the railway line’s physical and operational vulnerabilities, particularly to future weather events, such as drought, heat, flooding, wind and storms. Based on this work, an adaptation plan was created to determine the medium- and long-term actions to be taken. In the shorter term, fire prevention and fire-fighting actions (especially to protect power substations) are a priority, particularly in light of the events of the summers of 2021 and 2022.
For the Athens–Patras motorway in Greece, a study based on IPCC scenarios identified the physical, operational and maintenance risks caused by floods, heatwaves and rising temperatures, which are expected to increase in frequency, intensity and duration in the years to come. The conclusions highlighted the most serious vulnerability points (including water drainage systems and electrical equipment) and the motorway sections exposed to the highest risk.
In 2020, VINCI Autoroutes conducted a criticality analysis of its national network. This study assesses changes in weather parameters in the medium term (2035) and long term (2085) and their impact on motorway infrastructure. It is based on two climate scenarios, RCP 8.5 (business as usual) and RCP 4.5 (ambitious policy to reduce GHG emissions). The results suggest focusing on two main threats: flooding or flash flooding and fires, with most risk areas along the Mediterranean. VINCI Autoroutes is participating in testing Ademe’s ACT Adaptation method, which measures companies’ ability to adapt to climate change. In 2023, VINCI Autoroutes was a partner in two foundational initiatives designed to enhance the resilience of the motorway network. The first is a strategic climate change vulnerability assessment of the national road network, with the participation of France’s Department of Road Mobility (DMR). The purpose of this review is to define the key aspects of vulnerability, provide socio-economic data on the effects of climate change on the network and its functionality, and develop adaptation measures to reduce the vulnerabilities identified. The second is a study of the resilience of the regional transport system in partnership with Région Sud – Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur with the aim of adapting to climate change, along with an assessment of the future physical risks to infrastructure.
