In 2023, VINCI Autoroutes tested a biodiversity footprint measurement method with the help of the consultancy I Care. It quantifies the biodiversity impacts of infrastructure throughout its life cycle, categorised by direct drivers of biodiversity loss, as identified by the IPBES. With this tool, the business line was able to compare direct and indirect pressures on biodiversity and rank them. The initial results, still to be confirmed, indicate that the infrastructure’s fragmentation of habitats, the impacts of motorway traffic (contribution to climate change), and the agri-food model at rest and service areas represent roughly equivalent pressures on biodiversity. Given the pioneering nature of the methodology, these types of indicators aggregating biodiversity impacts are not yet fully mature or ready to be used for action plan monitoring.
VINCI Concessions entities are therefore developing their own metrics for the monitoring of operational action plans. In 2025, in partnership with the company Murmuration, the business line continued the work launched in 2024 to develop a land use classification indicator. Using satellite image analysis and a land occupation recognition algorithm, the tool assesses the naturalness of each site and the habitats it contains. It provides concessions without access to field inventories with reliable data on natural habitats at their sites. To date, 64 airports have been analysed.
Through a partnership with the startup Netcarbon, VINCI Autoroutes has co-developed indicators to measure the carbon sequestration potential of a site targeted for land rehabilitation, as well as monitor actual change, and assess the potential and actual improvement of the site’s ecological functions. The initial data obtained during the year has served to highlight site potential and support initiatives that optimise biodiversity conservation.
To ensure that biodiversity issues are increasingly taken into account in property development operations, a simple biodiversity assessment is systematically carried out on land where VINCI Immobilier plans to develop a project.
Since 2012, VINCI Construction has been centralising and analysing fauna and flora data to expand the French national natural heritage databases of the Inventaire National du Patrimoine Naturel (INPN). Following this example, VINCI will strive to share data from other businesses and increase the volume of inventory data it contributes to the public domain by 20%.
VINCI actively supports research projects that promote biodiversity. In 2023, VINCI renewed its partnership with AgroParisTech in the lab recherche environnement research programme created in 2008. Work carried out under this programme includes research on reducing urban heat island effects and managing the water cycle in an urban environment. Ecosystem services are still insufficiently harnessed, and yet they represent a key driver of urban adaptation to climate change. AgroParisTech researchers explored several related topics in 2025: biodiversity in the soil, the implementation and management of urban and peri-urban green spaces, and the influence of building morphology and green space management on the biodiversity impact of multi-unit residential buildings.
To reduce the pressures of VINCI’s activities on biodiversity in relation to the five direct drivers of biodiversity loss identified by the IPBES (see paragraph 2.6.1, “Identification of material impacts, risks and opportunities”, page 238), a range of actions adapted to issues are rolled out across entities. These are summarised in the table below and described in the paragraphs that follow.
| Factors creating pressures on biodiversity | Actions to reduce pressures, adapted to VINCI’s activities |
|---|---|
| Land use and fragmentation factor | Land use and fragmentation factor Actions to reduce pressures, adapted to VINCI’s activities Develop land recycling to avoid new soil sealing |
Factors creating pressures on biodiversity “No net land take” target for property development |
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Factors creating pressures on biodiversity Reduce factors driving natural habitat loss at concessions |
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Factors creating pressures on biodiversity Reduce factors driving loss of natural environments at quarries |
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Factors creating pressures on biodiversity Reduce factors driving natural habitat loss at worksites |
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| Resources factor | Resources factor Actions to reduce pressures, adapted to VINCI’s activities Reduce pressure on wood resources (see paragraph 2.3.2.1, “Promoting the use of construction techniques and materials that economise on natural resources”, page 228). |
Factors creating pressures on biodiversity Reduce pressure on water resources (see paragraph 2.5, “Preserving natural environments - Water (ESRS E3)”, page 235) |
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| Climate change factor | Climate change factor Actions to reduce pressures, adapted to VINCI’s activities See paragraph 2.2, “Acting for the climate (ESRS E1)”, page 208 |
| Pollution – plant protection products factor | Pollution – plant protection products factor Actions to reduce pressures, adapted to VINCI’s activities Reduce the use of plant protection products in the Concessions business |
| Invasive alien species (IAS) factor | Invasive alien species (IAS) factor Actions to reduce pressures, adapted to VINCI’s activities Implement an IAS management plan |
Land recycling means restoring obsolete land — former industrial facilities, dilapidated housing, polluted land and abandoned office complexes or shopping areas — to give it a new, sustainable purpose without encroaching further on natural environments.
VINCI Immobilier has set a target to generate more than 50% of revenue through land recycling and achieve “no net land take” (excluding Urbat and operations in Poland) by 2030. In 2025, land recycling operations accounted for 59% of the business line’s activity, showing growth despite a difficult economic context (see paragraph 2.6.3, “Performance monitoring”, page 244).
VINCI Immobilier continued to expand its offer of urban circularity services in 2025. Based on the cross-analysis of various categories of urban planning and market data, in collaboration with the company Gabarit, VINCI Immobilier assesses property assets’ potential and identifies scenarios for their restoration. This approach promotes land recycling by encouraging the renovation of existing buildings and the repurposing of unused sites to limit the CO2 emissions associated with new builds.
