Politique Internationale — Decarbonizing mobility, along with the infrastructures that support mobility, is one of the major challenges for the years to come. Do you think that industries - in particular the construction industry - are fully committed to meeting this challenge?
Frédéric Gardès — There is a real awareness. It may be recent, and still fairly limited geographically - with a push in Western Europe - but it is real. Climate skepticism has become a marginal phenomenon. Everyone is aware that without change, particularly in mobility and production patterns, life on the planet will become increasingly difficult.
Many manufacturers in the mobility and construction sectors are getting involved. At Colas, we have rolled out a strategy to decarbonize our activities. Our objective for 2030 is to reduce both our direct GHG emissions by 30% (scopes 1 and 2), and, more ambitious and far rarer in our business segment, our indirect upstream emissions (scope 3a). Just an example of what we are doing to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels: we are working with our suppliers to gradually switch our fleets and plants over to green electricity, green hydrogen and biofuels.
So, it is clear that there is awareness in some parts of the world and progress is being made in others. But our efforts must be collective, shared and supported by political leaders and public decision-makers.
Let’s take France for example. The construction industry is determined to support the ecological revolution on a massive scale. But there is often a gap between government ambitions and the daily reality of bidding on projects in the field. And the gap does not always allow for environmentally virtuous projects.
The situation is different for some of France’s neighbors. The United Kingdom, for example, has a detailed roadmap, supported by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), to achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. Also, in Finland, the government has set an ambitious target for 2035, which is unique in the fact that all stakeholders have been asked to draw up roadmaps, with each sector defining its own action plan.
Personally, I believe in collective incentive and motivation as the driving force of change.
P. I. — In your opinion, what steps does France need to take to ensure that more environment requirements are included in public procurement contracts?
F. G. — Elected officials are increasingly attentive to the idea of Innovation, but it remains a secondary criterion in the bidding process. It takes a back seat to competitiveness, responsiveness and rigor. We must change mindsets to overcome the preconceived notion that a greener technical solution is systematically much more expensive. Even more so as the volume of innovative solutions increases and prices become more and more competitive.
Some public contracting authorities are encouraging companies to be more environmentally friendly. The Société du Grand Paris, for example, introduced an incentive scheme in 2020 called the Reverse Carbon Initiative. Contractors are financially encouraged to propose new materials that consume fewer resources. If this innovation allows them to save money, then they get to keep the extra margin.
But in my mind, more environmentally virtuous solutions need to be imposed in the actual bidding stage itself. The Climate Change and Resilience Act is a first step, since it reforms public procurement by requiring that, by 2026, environmental issues must be included in at least one of the criteria for selecting bids for public procurement contracts, but this is not enough.
If we want to take this further, our legal and administrative tools must become even more incentive-based, and even more restrictive. I am thinking in particular of bids that are open to technical alternatives.
P. I. — Colas has a longstanding tradition of innovation. Can you give us some examples of solutions that are helping shape tomorrow’s sustainable mobility?
F. G. — For many years now, our R&D and technical teams around the world have been focusing on environmental issues. Today, we have a wide range of solutions to offer.
Among our most recent innovations is a binder produced from renewable raw materials that can replace bitumen in road surfacing, proven and certified to be completely safe for the environment. We have also developed new techniques for manufacturing cement that can save 20 to 30% in CO2. There are also cold mix techniques, not to mention new in-place pavement recycling processes that not only preserve resources, but also reduce impact in terms of CO2 emissions.
In addition, to build the sustainable mobility infrastructures of tomorrow, we have developed solutions such as Wattway, the world’s first photovoltaic road surface, and Flowell, an innovative dynamic signage solution. Built with panels made of encapsulated LEDs, Flowell is a luminous road marking that makes it possible to modulate sections of a roadway according to traffic needs, and to allow different modes of travel to coexist harmoniously in public spaces. This is clearly an innovation with a very wide scope.
These innovative solutions have already all proven their worth on many different projects. What we need to do now is to roll them out on a broader scale... in particular through public demand but also through private clients.
P. I. — These solutions sound like you are working for the City of the Future. Do we already know what tomorrow’s urban mobility infrastructures will look like, and more broadly, what the roads of the future will be like?
F. G. — The City of the Future is often pictured in many different ways, sometimes it’s a bit farfetched, almost like science fiction. Flying cabs, for example, are technically possible, but no one could stand the aerodynamic noise they would make!
Above all, when designing the city and the mobility infrastructures of the future, the first challenge is to respond to climate change. Everyone agrees that we need to rethink the way we travel and interact in urban environments.
Thus, decarbonizing mobility necessarily means bolstering soft mobility, such as bicycles, or collective mobility such as tramways or Bus Rapid Transit networks that run on electricity or green hydrogen. It also involves optimizing the use of infrastructure. In this respect, developing shared lanes with a solution like Flowell opens up promising prospects. There remains the issue of last mile logistics, which is closely linked to the very layout of mobility infrastructures and is complex to manage. Colas has a role to play in optimizing last-mile distribution in its most delicate phase, and most impactful for local residents. Fluideo, a Qievo solution, has been tapped to manage the flow of trucks in the urban development zone for the future Olympic village built for the Paris 2024 Games. The fight against urban heat islands (UHI) is another challenge we need to tackle. One of our commitments is to support decision- makers who need to rethink urban development to improve land use. We have also already experimented with solutions based on the use of special materials. Specifically, I am thinking of Urbalith, a permeable, natural and recyclable surfacing, made from the cold mix of aggregates and an organo-mineral binder, which can help minimize UHIs.
Generally speaking, be it for highways, freeways, city streets, country roads, even railways, Colas, as a specialist in mobility infrastructure, is committed to designing infrastructure as a low-carbon asset, right from the drawing board. Thanks to the development of BIM and CIM technologies, we are able to assess the impact of mobility infrastructures on the climate at every stage of their life cycle.
Designed, built, developed and maintained in the most responsible, the most sustainable way possible, transportation infrastructures have a bright future ahead of them, because they connect people and communities. Physically, the roads of the future will still resemble what we know as roads today for a long time to come, even if pavement design will necessarily evolve. Above all, they will be increasingly connected, with charging functions for electric vehicles, catenaries for heavy vehicles, information for autonomous vehicles, etc.
P. I. — What ideas do you have to improve the condition of roads so that we can make mobility in the future as efficient as possible?
F. G. — Around the world, regular maintenance is essential to keep roads safe and comfortable, and to control costs, too. Renovating infrastructure before the damage becomes a structural issue is much less expensive than rebuilding it completely.
In a group like Colas, our maintenance business is an important part of our revenue.
Looking more specifically at France, in rankings drawn up by the International Economic Forum, the country’s road network was rated 1st in the world in terms of quality just 10 years ago. Today, regrettably, France is now ranked 18th. The drop can be explained by cuts to road maintenance budgets that made it impossible to keep roads in optimal condition, save on the concession networks.
But roads don’t have to reach the point where they have to be rebuilt entirely: it’s perfectly avoidable.
At Colas, we have innovative, sustainable solutions. For instance, we have developed a digital tool, Anaïs, which enables us to detect potentially hazardous or damaged sections on infrastructure. We also use artificial intelligence to improve our knowledge of road conditions and make multi-year maintenance investments more relevant.
We also can imagine new ways of contracting road maintenance as well. Rethinking how road networks are managed can make it easier to coordinate work, which could optimize costs for both the community and the contractor. This means that more roads can be maintained, while continuing to take into account environmental and energy constraints. In the end, users get infrastructures that perform much better. There is a legal tool that meets all these requirements: global performance contracts. This model, which gives overall responsibility for a road network on the scale of a city or a county, for example, already exists in England and in some northern European countries.
The mobility of the future will depend on improving how road networks are managed.
P. I. — Seen from afar, it looks like sustainable, responsible and innovative roads are the prerogative of European countries, and even then, of those economies concerned with the fight against global warming. Is this vision nearsighted?
F. G. — Allow me to nuance that, if I may. First, let’s not forget that the fight against climate change is a global one. Every country on the planet is concerned, and every country is feeling the impact.
Of course, Western Europe wants to be a forerunner, but it is not the only part of the world to consider mobility infrastructures from the perspective of the ecological revolution. In the United States, Joe Biden has made strong steps forward on this issue. In Asia, after decades of accelerated economic development, many countries are realizing the need to integrate global warming issues. In Africa, this will come in stages.
P. I. — Lastly, can we speak of “French excellence” in the field of construction and public works?
F. G. — Without question, France is a leader in this field and is internationally renowned. It has excellent educational programs, with renowned engineering schools, recognized technical training and a high density of in-house training programs developed by companies. France also boasts a number of large international construction and public works groups, capable of performing major projects across the world, and faithful to a historical tradition of innovation. To illustrate the richness of France’s heritage, I would cite, for example, Freyssinet’s [1879-1962] prestressed concrete technique, which made it possible to handle tensile stresses in concrete caused by the weight of loads. This invention opened up a world of possibilities in the construction of engineering structures.
But other countries also stand out for their quality training, their great achievements and their innovations. In this respect, I remember that it was two British engineers who, more than a hundred years ago, developed Cold Asphalt, the bitumen emulsion that revolutionized road construction and gave its name to Colas, an abbreviation of COLd ASphalt.
As a group with operations in 50 countries on five continents and strong local roots, we are convinced that tomorrow’s sustainable mobility infrastructures will be the fruit of diverse cultures and techniques.