Bouygues Construction and Suez are closer to the market of the sustainable city

The city’s sustainable, smart, green, connected… under the terms that change over the modes and especially of the issues faced by cities all around the world, it’s been a good ten years that the subject is on everyone’s lips. Those municipal teams, such as those of the heads of service companies, in sectors as varied as energy, mobility, housing, water, waste, etc

But the market remains difficult to identify.

“The problem of the sustainable city is in front of us,” says Jean-Louis Donning, CEO of Suez ; it is a market that is emerging, the potential of which is difficult to estimate precisely. “

It is also protean :

“The priorities of the” sustainable city ” differ from one city to another : the safety in Mexico, the consumption of water in Singapore, the mobility in Paris, the pollution in China, etc “, he adds.

Urban projects are ever more complex

One thing is certain, it requires more than ever to unite their skills in order to meet the expectations of the municipalities.

“It becomes fundamental to establish partnerships in the face of large-scale urban projects are increasingly complex, for which a single enterprise may not possess all the skills “, recognises and Marie-Luce Godinot, director of Innovation and sustainable Development Bouygues Construction.

The two companies come to build a partnership worldwide, non-exclusive with an initial term of three years to co-design and develop innovative solutions in the field of resource management, sustainable construction and the circular economy.

It came on the heels of several projects conducted jointly in the field of the sustainable city and of the circular economy, in particular regarding safety on the construction site or even managing dredged site around the station of the Fort of Issy-Vanves-Clamart in the framework of the Grand Paris Express. “Working together, and in advance allows us to improve the recovery and reduce the rotations of trucks,” says Marie-Luce Godinot.

A jurisdiction that meets the expectations of local management of the sites, which are much increased in recent years.

“Such a partnership can be effective and relevant in avoiding having to start from the blank sheet of paper every time “, says Marie-Luce Godinot.

Sobriety, a goal complicated for cities

Beyond this issue, which includes the recovery of waste and recycled materials and the development of logistics solutions at construction sites, the collaboration will also focus on the treatment and management of water, decentralized solutions, on the city and eco-neighborhoods, or even the implementation of loops of local resources.

“The cities are going to have to change their relationship to the resource, whatever it may be, anticipates Jean-Louis Chaussade, in which the group wants to be the champion of the” city contact “. The campaigns will no longer accept to be mere suppliers of the cities that consume the resources produced in the countryside. “It is this way that seek to borrow for a few years, major metropolises, and were aware that these issues will be growing with the continuation of urbanization. In 2030, in effect, it is anticipated that 60% of the 9 billion inhabitants of the planet will live in urban areas, particularly in a quarantine of mega cities with over 10 million inhabitants.

“But it is very complicated, as illustrated by the discussion of mobility in Paris, observes Jean-Louis Chaussade. These are operations of very long-term who face the short-term. “

The partnership is also good for the French market and internationally.

“We want to win one or two big hits in France that can serve as a showcase to address foreign markets together,” says Jean-Louis Chaussade.

These historical actors of the city are construction companies and environmental services – such as energy or urban mobility – have established long standing relationships with the municipalities. But they have seen since few new entrants, decided to take their share of the cake of the sustainable city that does not cease to grow.

The new incoming big data

At the time of big data, the data specialists such as IBM, Cisco or Google, which has just obtained the authorization of the municipality of San Jose (California) are building a Google City, invest in the niche. They are strong to exploit the vast amounts of data collected by the cities and their sub-delegates, to provide to the municipal teams of dashboards and centres piloting integrated. At the same time, in accordance with their obligations in the field of open data, cities are now making this anonymised data available to all, as well their constituents that startups wishing to use them to develop solutions – often apps -aimed at improving the daily lives of city dwellers.

“We know better than anyone how best to exploit our own data, reacts to Jean-Louis Chaussade. But the interest of the big data also comes from the interaction between our data and those of other trades, he acknowledges. For the cities of tomorrow, it will be necessary to put all data from all services on a common platform. “

Accustomed to unite occasionally in consortia within the framework of pilot projects as demonstrators of the sustainable city, the companies are still in their infancy for more systematic approaches. Veolia concluded, however, by the end of 2014 a partnership with IBM, for example, the energy management in the city.

“This is the first time that we develop this type of partnership with a constructor, note Jean-Louis Chaussade. This is why we retain a great degree of freedom and have set a duration (3 years). The idea is to exercise both determination and flexibility. “

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