The Group is implementing an adaptation policy to increase its resilience to climate change. Its three main goals are as follows:
The adaptation policy relies on several essential measures to meet these goals:
Adaptation actions
Actions to adapt infrastructure under concession
VINCI Concessions and VINCI Autoroutes continue to perform vulnerability analyses on their sites under concession. The findings are used to develop and implement tailored adaptation plans, with the input of the relevant technical teams. 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). This approach will be applied by the entire VINCI Concessions network in 2025. 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.
VINCI Autoroutes focuses its investments on identified priorities in its network, such as incorporating resilience into the design phase of structures and building adaptations to enable infrastructure to be quickly restored (in particular, underwater locks). In Portugal, ANA conducted an assessment of the vulnerabilities and climate risks affecting Faro airport and then worked with its various stakeholders to develop an action plan to address them. At the same time, it established a plan to track progress made in implementing the action plan and monitor Faro airport’s vulnerability to extreme weather events.
Taxonomy-eligible CapEx committed in 2024 to adapt concessions to climate change was €4 million at the end of the year.
Actions to strengthen the resilience of structures built by the Group
Foresight studies
To better anticipate the risks associated with climate change, VINCI uses the climate resilience and climate change adaptation foresight studies carried out by a Leonard working group that has been active since 2018. The members of the working group represent VINCI’s various activities and are supported by 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. Since 2008, the VINCI-ParisTech lab recherche environnement (created by a partnership between Mines Paris - PSL, École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, and AgroParisTech) has supported some 85 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. More recently, VINCI’s projects, which provide a testing ground for researchers, have contributed to producing scientific knowledge in areas such as urban heat island effects and life cycle assessment (LCA).
The Resallience office regularly assesses climate change impacts on specific projects, ranging from property developments to infrastructure management to regional initiatives. Demand for this type of impact assessment rose significantly in 2024. Resallience and Sixense (VINCI Construction) also 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.
Employee awareness
An e-learning module was launched to familiarise employees with the concept of resilience and help them understand the associated challenges for the Group’s activities and its customers’ businesses. To date, 144 employees have completed this module. In addition, 90 people were trained on how to use the ResiLens tool in 2024.
In April 2024, Leonard, VINCI’s innovation and foresight platform, held the seventh Building Beyond festival, on the theme of adapting to climate change. The event spanned three days, each concentrating on a different aspect of adaptation: solidarity within regions, transforming urban design professions, and fighting social inequalities.
Awareness initiatives focusing especially on protecting the health and safety of Group employees while adapting to changing climate risks are described in paragraph 3.1.1.2, “Identification of impacts, risks and opportunities”, page 236.
Climate change adaptation projects
For short-term adaptation, as part of the Group’s construction activities, VINCI companies regularly repair and restore infrastructure and power lines. For example, VINCI Energies entities in France helped restore electricity distribution and telecommunications network lines in Brittany after the windstorms Ciarán and Domingos swept through the region in 2023. In 2024, revenue from the Group’s adaptation projects was €118 million (see paragraph 2.1.1.1, “Eligibility and alignment of VINCI’s revenue”, page 198).
For medium-term adaptation, the Group incorporates eco-design into all its projects to anticipate necessary changes to cities and their energy, communication, transport, water and sewer infrastructure. VINCI makes new and existing structures more resistant to extreme weather events, ensures their long-term resilience and provides innovative construction solutions.
VINCI companies are developing a range of expertise in technical improvements, from strengthening sea walls to limit rising sea levels (more than 50 cm by 2100, as projected by the IPCC) to building flood risk prevention areas, installing lift pumps to drain water, and applying permeable asphalt to absorb water (Drainovia) during heavy rainfall. To cope with high temperatures, construction materials used in equipment are designed to withstand temperatures of 50°C. SMA, Lumi+, Ecolvia Déco and Puma all offer light-coloured asphalt to reduce heat from roads.
VINCI Construction takes part in a growing number of climate adaptation projects (combating urban heat islands, landscaping parks and gardens, soil unsealing, etc.), for example with their new Revilo® integrated offering (see paragraph 2.1.2.1, “Employee engagement”, page 201). In 2024, VINCI Construction carried out several projects to improve the resilience of regions. In the United Kingdom, an area in Plymouth’s Central Park was re-landscaped, using a sustainable drainage system to provide a nature-based solution to flooding and create a space for wildlife (flora and fauna) and people. The project team also installed an innovative Rootlok retaining wall system made of bags of compost, sand and seeds that grow into vegetation. The design has a life span of 120 years.
