Introduction
A responsibility towards sustainable development
Prioritizing environmental sustainability as we grow and renew our built environment is crucial to ensure longer lasting resources and a greater wellbeing for everyone.
For this, city actors such as designers, builders and users need design tools that correctly account for the ecological issues connected to development. As a designer, financer, builder and operator of infrastructure and facilities, and with growing interest in eco-design, energy performance, sustainable infrastructure and new mobility services, VINCI believes it is its duty to help finance and advance these new tools.
An innovative partnership
In 2008, VINCI and three ParisTech graduate schools (MINES ParisTech, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech and AgroParisTech) entered into a five-year partnership involving the creation of the Eco-Design Chair, through which VINCI’s subsidiaries offered pilot sites for researchers and interns. The results of their experiments were made available to urban stakeholders via some 25 conferences.
Between 2008 and 2013, the Chair focused primarily on eco-neighbourhoods, refurbishment of built structures, materials life cycle analysis, biodiversity and sustainable mobility. The work notably created some 15 measurement tools that have become benchmarks in the field, such as nova Equer(1), Biodi(v)strict(2) and ParkCap(3).
Our continued commitment
VINCI has renewed this partnership for the period up to 2018 and has increased funding for the five-year period from €3 million to €4 million. The main themes in the new period will be energy performance, urban agriculture, smart grids, smart cities, renewable energies, and recycling as well as more targeted topics such as the socio-economic impact of the Grand Paris light rail stations.
VINCI is committed to generating innovative concepts and tools for use in eco-urban and biodiversity planning. Together with ParisTech, VINCI produces and shares sound, multidisciplinary research so that city actors may all together engage in more environmentally-conscious decision-making.
