Innovation at the heart of VINCI's business lines

21 November 2013 - Sustainability

On the occasion of the final ceremony of the VINCI Innovation Awards, a competition held every two years to reward innovative talent in the Group's companies, a quick look at innovation at VINCI.

Engineering is inherent to the name VINCI, which explains why Group companies take innovation very seriously.

VINCI's business lines and companies apply a policy of innovation focused on their markets and optimising the solutions they offer their clients, whether this means design methods, construction techniques or exclusive products and processes, like those developed by Eurovia in the road industry and by Soletanche Freyssinet in specialised civil engineering.

The Group's research & development policy encompasses all the big challenges central to the Group's business lines: eco-design, energy performance, sustainable infrastructure and the new mobility services.

Collaborative innovation

VINCI advocates a shared approach to research, since adding to sharing knowledge is what drives innovation. VINCI has chosen to direct part of its innovation activity to supporting research and contributing to reflection and public-private initiatives.

The "Eco-design of buildings and infrastructure" Chair

The partnership between VINCI and ParisTech (Mines Paris-Tech, École des Ponts ParisTech and Agro ParisTech) formed in 2008 has give birth to the first chair in eco-design of buildings and infrastructure. Its aim is to transfer the knowledge of ParisTech researchers to VINCI and its eco-system, whether public or private players.

The Chair focuses primarily on three eco-design research avenues:
· evaluation of the environmental quality of buildings and neighbourhoods
· analysis of the life cycle of transport infrastructure and their impact
· engineering of buildings and transport and regulation of their use for optimal preservation of the environment.

By participating in the study programme of engineering, specialised master's degree and PhD students in the three partner schools, VINCI fosters the integration of eco-design concepts in training the new generations of engineers.

The Chair facilitates sharing of knowledge through publications in scientific and technical reviews and through organisation, every year, of an international symposium.

The Chair contributes to development of decision-making tools for the different economic players.

The City Factory

The City Factory, created at VINCI's initiative, is a forward-looking think tank fostering exchanges between public and private players from all fields that carry out high-level work on urban development and mobility issues. The City Factory is an interdisciplinary melting pot for comparing points of view, experiences and visions. It organises its work around three research avenues:
· urban development
· the city as living space and social space
· sustainable mobility

Participative innovation – the VINCI Innovation Awards competition

This competition invites all the Group's employees throughout the world to share their innovations, with the aim of recognising them and facilitating their dissemination. The 2013 competition was a huge success, with almost 2,075 projects submitted by more than 5,300 employees in 35 countries (a 21% increase in the number of projects over 2011), in five categories: Materials, Processes and Techniques; Management; Equipment and Tools; Marketing and Services, and, lastly, Dissemination.

Prizes were awarded to 146 teams in the regional awards ceremonies held between June and October 2013. The final ceremony, which brought the competition to a close on 21 November, unveiled the 13 best innovations and shone the spotlight on the employees who devised and implemented them.

In line with its decentralised organisation, VINCI develops its innovation potential by encouraging concrete initiatives devised by its companies and teams working on the ground. The goal of the VINCI Innovation Awards competition, open to all the Group's 193,000 employees, is to capitalise on these innovations and facilitate their dissemination.

Tchernobyl containment shelter - a double-skin steel roof with a life span of 100 year

Tomorrow's challenges

Continuing to design and build tomorrow's infrastructure and buildings, whether new-build or renovation, public facilities or the residential and tertiary sectors, is a crucial challenge for VINCI.

The challenges of tomorrow will be met by a change in technical approach with the transition from an obligation of means to an obligation of performance (energy performance, sustainability guarantees for concrete, asphalt mixes and structures). We are seeing growing complexity in all aspects of the construction industry: active envelope, photovoltaic panels integrated into buildings, optimised design-construction, positive energy buildings, dependency and accessibility issues, etc.

The challenges of tomorrow will also be met by applied R&D in eco-design of buildings and infrastructure, an issue that requires diversity of environmental indicators well beyond energy performance alone. The challenge, worldwide, is to devise, today, buildings, blocks, neighbourhoods and cities that can adapt to a 2°C or 4°C increase in temperature, on a planet with seven and soon nine billion inhabitants, the majority of whom will be city-dwellers.