Our biggest challenge is combining the return of mobility with the need to protect our climate; that is the project of our generation. VINCI Concessions has been applying an ambitious environmental strategy since 2016. This has already enabled us to work on the ground to preserve biodiversity, treat water and waste at our concessions, and above all establish recognised leadership in terms of reducing our CO2 emissions. We committed to halving our direct CO2 emissions between 2018 and 2030 and we met that target in 2023 seven years ahead of schedule. Our new ambition is therefore to reduce our direct emissions by two thirds by 2030. We’re on the right track. Today, 75% of the electricity consumed at our airports comes from renewable sources, and 4 airports in our network (Toulon Hyères, Beja, Madeira and Ponta Delgada) have been ranked among the top 10 airports worldwide for the highest environmental distinction in the sector. They were the first airports in our network to achieve net zero emissions in their activities, and others will follow their lead. We only have one planet. We are therefore exporting our environmental strategy and our ambitions to all of the infrastructure in our network, while taking unique local needs into account. Operating airports in Mexico and highways in Brazil means running services that these countries’ economies rely on.
It’s a collaborative, sector-wide project. We lead by example in our area of responsibility, but we are also responsible for guiding our clients in the fight against climate change and their decarbonisation pathway. By offering biofuels at our airports, we are enabling airlines to anticipate changes to their fleet. And in 2023 we also signed partnerships with two of them so they could benefit from our reforestation programmes. More generally, we are doing everything we can to step up the energy transition and enable alternative channels to develop quickly. We are also very actively involved in the electric mobility sector. We won a contract in Germany in 2023 to install around 100 charging points for electric vehicles, which will contribute to targets set by the public authorities. We also installed electric vehicle charging stations at Lisbon and London Gatwick airports. And in Japan, Osaka has become home to the country’s largest airport parking area for electric vehicles. We are also involved in hydrogen mobility, both through strategic partnerships with key players like Airbus and Air Liquide or the Hy24 investment fund, but also in a very tangible manner on the ground by carrying out pilot experiments at Lyon Saint Exupéry airport.
It has always been central for VINCI Concessions as it is key to striking the perfect balance between the interests of our clients and our ambition, which is to constantly enhance the service we provide. Innovating means going further than the specifications of our concession contracts. We chose to focus our efforts on three areas of innovation that apply to all of our infrastructure. The first is ensuring smooth traffic flows; the launch in 2023 of our subsidiary ViaPlus, a specialist in freeflow toll services, has further bolstered our technological leadership. The second is operational efficiency. Digital technology has enabled considerable progress in this area thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT) and the use of digital twins. The third area is the customer experience. At Lisbon and Lyon-Saint Exupéry, for example, we are trialling the use of biometrics to make passenger journeys smoother at both airports.
