2024 Universal Registration Document

Prevention and mitigation measures

Actions to prevent or manage potential negative impacts must be tailored to each project, and will depend on various factors, including the nature of the projects, the scale and severity of the impacts, and their locations. When projects involve funding from international financial institutions, the highest standards in this area are applied. Group companies must carefully monitor their impacts, try to prevent them, and implement corrective and/or remedial measures if required.

Actions typically fall into three categories: preventive, corrective and remedial. In most cases, all of these actions must be approved beforehand by the customer as contracting authority and project owner, who is therefore usually responsible for relations with the affected communities.

Lastly, the types of actions and measures adopted also vary depending on the position within a project’s value chain. Companies involved in large-scale infrastructure projects or operating as prime contractors and concession holders have greater responsibilities than subcontractors. The Group also distinguishes between the impacts resulting from projects that are entrusted to its companies by customers and contracting authorities (e.g. land-related issues), and those resulting directly the services provided by Group companies on these projects (e.g. negative impacts generated by construction activities). In the latter case, companies have a direct responsibility to prevent or mitigate impacts, while in the former, depending on their position in the value chain, they are expected to exert their influence and provide advice to help project owners avoid or minimise negative impacts on third parties. This capacity for influence and leverage varies significantly depending on the position and role of Group companies within a project’s value chain.

Examples of prevention and mitigation measures

Social, economic, environmental, cultural and other issues

• Adjusting work schedules to address noise concerns in particular
• Ensuring public access to environmental information held by the company
• Anticipating the arrival of workers and organising a supply chain that respects local resources
• Monitoring local prices
• Identifying sites of religious, cultural or heritage significance in advance
• Drawing up a strict code of conduct for all drivers, including external suppliers delivering equipment and materials, with verification of adherence
• Conducting community awareness campaigns on work-related safety, including in schools and public spaces
• Installing appropriate signs and barriers around construction sites

Land-related issues

• Proposing alternative designs and routes to customers to minimise land impacts and expropriations
• Notifying customers of any grievances or complaints relating to land acquisition
• Ensuring close follow-up and monitoring with the customer to resettle and compensate any displaced people
• Conducting land investigations and surveys
• Taking care to avoid any encroachment on indigenous or tribal territories

Means and resources

• Recruiting agents to liaise between the project and local communities
• Engaging sociologists, anthropologists, etc.
• Drawing up a code of conduct for people working on site and, when relevant, raising workers’ awareness of local ways and customs

Community engagement: from an integrated perspective for the duration of the project

• Identifying all the project stakeholders and affected communities (including indigenous and tribal peoples), as well as other vulnerable groups
• Consultation and dialogue with communities before, during and after activities, for instance by setting up mechanisms for engagement and expression between the company and the communities
• Conducting stakeholder information and awareness campaigns to inform them about the work, the progress made, the potential impacts on communities, and the measures put in place to mitigate or prevent them
• Setting up or taking part in effective and easily accessible grievance mechanisms
• Offering compensation and/or remediation in the event of damages

Development of frames of reference and tools to support operations

To support its operational teams with managing these issues, VINCI develops and deploys tools such as:

• a performance scorecard made available to all Group employees on the internal Managing Human Rights platform, which is used to carry out human rights assessments for subsidiaries and projects;
• a scorecard used to identify social and environmental risks for the teams in charge of tenders (finalised in 2024, with the continuation of its distribution in 2025);
• a stakeholder identification and mapping tool called Reflex;
• training programmes covering various areas, including International Finance Corporation (IFC) performance standards, and case studies on managing relations with local communities, to build awareness among managers and particularly those in charge of major projects and concessions. These actions will continue moving forward in 2025.

Since 2023, VINCI has also been an active member of the working group on local community relations formed by the UN Global Compact Network France, which aims to publish a guide for businesses.

On an operational level, the business lines draw up and implement reference frameworks and tools that each project will be able to apply and adapt to its context. For instance, Sogea-Satom, which operates on the African continent and is focused primarily on roadworks, earthworks, civil engineering, hydraulic infrastructure and building, has put in place a framework for managing community impacts to support its operations. All branches and projects have access to a plan to manage risks to neighbouring communities in the areas of influence around projects (both within and outside of worksites), as well as a stakeholder engagement plan, setting out the approach and key prevention measures to be adopted. These tools highlight the core principles for engagement, such as the requirements to remain accountable and willing to report on any potential impacts associated with a project’s activities, maintain a relationship built around engagement and dialogue, respect the interests, opinions and aspirations of the various stakeholders, and ensure their participation. More generally, projects are supported by sociologists or community outreach officers who are familiar with the areas where projects are located and whose mission includes coordinating this dialogue on a daily basis, and ensuring that stakeholders receive all relevant information, grievances are addressed and appropriate responses are provided. Alongside these documents, there is also a standard grievance management procedure, a catalogue of mitigation measures, a training and awareness plan, and a social inclusion and gender integration action plan. This documentation is designed to evolve and must be adapted to the specific features of each project and each context.