News update

What key trends and figures should be remembered from 2022 in the construction and public works, energy, and air and road transport sectors? Apprenticeship, electric transportation, decarbonisation of the aviation sector... here is an overview of the highlights before this year ends.

The group of 350 public and private organisations holding AFNOR Certification’s Equality and/or Diversity label, of which VINCI is a member, met for the fourth time on Monday 19 December.

VINCI, VINCI Autoroutes and Leonard are now sponsors of the Bruno Latour Fund, a postdoctoral research programme on environmental transformation.

From 30 November to 1 December VINCI will be presenting its most emblematic climate- positive solutions at a summit in Bordeaux dedicated to this theme: the World Impact Summit.

As of this autumn, Faro Airport, managed by ANA (VINCI Airports/ VINCI Concessions), boasts its own solar power plant. With a capacity of 3 MWc, it covers 30% of the airport’s electricity requirements, thus reducing CO2 emissions by more than 1,500 t per year.

In partnership with Portuguese energy company Galp, ANA (VINCI Airports/ VINCI Concessions) has installed an ultrafast electric charging centre at Lisbon Airport.

The 27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) took place in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh from 6 to 18 November. Represented by Environment Director Isabelle Spiegel, VINCI presented its climate commitments and initiatives over a three-day period.

German energy service provider EWE is creating an underground hydrogen storage facility in a cavern near Berlin.

Lima Expresa (VINCI Highways/ VINCI Concessions) has just finished collecting six tonnes of electronic waste from obsolete equipment such as surveillance cameras, lighting, computers and printers.

On the Olympia Odos motorway (VINCI Highways/VINCI Concessions), in the Theseus tunnel in the Athens direction, a pilot project is to test the effectiveness of a lightcoloured road surface as regards improving visibility and limiting energy consumption, notably by reducing the need for lighting.

The Québec Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association’s prize for health and safety at work was awarded this year to Eurovia Québec (VINCI Construction), in recognition of its collaboration with the Biolift company on the design and development of an exoskeleton particularly adapted to jobs in construction.

In line with its environmental action plan, VINCI Airports (VINCI Concessions) has signed a new memorandum of understanding with Airbus, for a study on the use of hydrogen at the Kansai International, Osaka, Itami and Kobe Airports.

Mamoudzou, the island’s capital, suffers from frequent traffic jams in the northsouth direction. The urban community of Dembeni-Mamoudzou (Cadema) has decided to introduce a Caribus bus service (operating an 8.6 km route in a first phase, extending to a total of 20.6 km by 2026), which will reduce traffic congestion and improve both the mobility of many residents and the quality of the city’s air.

74% of employees want their company to reduce its digital carbon impact in order to preserve the environment. VINCI made a number of decisions on the drawing board for its new headquarters – from eco-designing information systems to using low-power electronics and on to engineering smart buildings and disseminating best practices – to lastingly reduce its offices’ digital carbon footprint.

All stakeholders are key to supporting companies’ environmental strategies – especially employees, who are playing an active role in the environmental transition. In France, 68% want to take environmental training as part of their work. This goes beyond simply raising awareness of daily environmentally friendly behaviours that they can adopt; rather, they want to learn how to truly harness their motivation and expertise to progress the environmental transition at their companies.

(VINCI Airports/VINCI Concessions) is the first in Brazil to win level 3 Airport Carbon Accreditation (ACA), awarded by the Airports Council International (ACI) in recognition of the efforts made to reduce its carbon emissions.

Nam Theun 2 Power Company-NTPC has entrusted the teams at Freyssinet (VINCI Construction) with repairing a concrete siphon at a hydroelectric plant in Laos.

Shell Refinery Pernis in Rotterdam (Netherlands) is going to build a new built low-carbon biofuels production facility which will produce renewable naphtha, diesel, aviation fuel.

In partnership with Galp Energia, ANA (VINCI Airports) inaugurated an ultrafast electric charging centre at Lisbon airport on Tuesday 12 July.

Kansai Airports (VINCI Airports/ VINCI Concessions) has been selected to receive the Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers 2021, for its plan to improve Kansai International Airport’s resilience in the face of natural catastrophes.

The consortium composed of Bessac (leader), Soletanche Bachy Fondations Spéciales (both VINCI Construction) and Setec Hydratec completed the construction of an entire tunnel for the discharge of treated water using pipes made of Exegy® ultra-low-carbon concrete.

Aggregates, those tiny fragments of rock used in the majority of construction materials, are the second most widely consumed resource in the world after water! The production and use of recycled rather than virgin aggregates address two major challenges: conserving natural resources and recovering construction waste.

Freyssinet Grands Projets and Freyssinet International Manila (VINCI Construction) were involved in the construction of the Philippines’ longest bridge (650 metres including a 390 metre central span).

On 11 May, VINCI Airports (VINCI Concessions) was awarded level 4 Airport Carbon Accreditation (ACA) for nine of its Portuguese airports: Lisbon, Porto, Faro, Ponta Delgada, Santa Maria, Horta, Flores, Madeira and Porto Santo.

Martin Kupka, the Czech Republic’s Minister of Transport, and Nicolas Notebaert, CEO of VINCI Concessions, visited the D4 Via Salis motorway construction site for an update on progress, one year after the foundation stone was laid.

VINCI Autoroutes opened a training centre for motorway workers, which will help it meet its recruitment requirements, in Brive on 4 April last.

Line 18 of the Grand Paris Express has received the first segment made of Exegy® ultra-low-carbon concrete, VINCI Construction's low-carbon concrete range.

The end of April marked the start of construction of the Rail Baltica rail infrastructure between Kaunas (Lithuania) and Latvia.

The Abdelmoumen pumped storage power plant (PSP), in the south-west of the country, makes it possible to store electrical energy in the form of water.

As announced by Kansai Airports (VINCI Airports/VINCI Concessions) and Nankai Bus, in March 2022 a hydrogen shuttle bus service was introduced at Kansai International Airport.

In Clermont-Ferrand, demolition of a 1960s Michelin warehouse, which was later converted into a storage facility for a local media outlet, will pave the way for VINCI Immobilier to build a new residential property complex.

Following the appearance of infiltration on the bank by the Emborrel lock in Avignonet-Lauragais (southwest France), Voies navigables de France (VNF) launched a call for possible solutions to these erosion problems.

In London, VINCI Construction Grands Projets (leader), Bachy Soletanche (VINCI Construction) and Costain are currently building two sections – 5.5 and 4.6 km in length – of the East works package of the Thames Tideway drainage tunnel project.

Cordeel Nederland has awarded Bosman Projects (VINCI Energies) a project on Karspeldreef, in Amsterdam.

Leonard, VINCI’s innovation and foresight platform, is tasked with identifying trends and imagining the future of cities and regions. Through its forward-looking research, studies and project and startup incubators, Leonard is teaming up to find the answers for the world of tomorrow. Here are the ideas that are taking construction, mobility and energy to the next stage and addressing environmental issues.

The new Santiago International Airport in Chile, recently inaugurated, is the result of a vast modernisation programme launched by VINCI Airports on award of the concession. We look back at this extraordinary five-year project that illustrates the effectiveness of the Group’s integrated model.

What are the options for building renewable infrastructure at a time when usable land is becoming scarce and the systems to harness energy from the sun and wind still take up considerable amounts of space? Here are a few attempts at solving the problem in places where you might not expect to see them.