Ecological transition: The FRTP informs through positive example

It is in the cozy setting of the Abbey of Sainte-, in Salon-de-Provence, that the “Sustainable Development” commission of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Regional Public Works Federation (FRTP Paca) held its last meeting of 2024, on December 16. The two presidents, Pierre-Paul Bernardi, and Dominique Haïtse, recalled at the opening the obligation to limit the environmental impacts of projects as much as possible and to change a number of practices in the approach to urban development, from design to implementation. construction sites (reduction of nuisances for local residents, waste management, reuse of materials, etc.), but also in the maintenance of remodeled spaces so that they do not turn out, over time, to be more ecologically costly than existing projects “old fashioned”.

As examples are worth more than speeches, two presentations were made to show how far it is possible to go, before Sophie Cahen, director of the Ecological Transition of the National Federation, detailed different means and tools to achieve this. .

Building and developing sustainably: example in center

Hélène Bailly-Maître, project director for the Avignon town hall, and the architect-urban planner Benoît Campion, described their entire approach to reuse and reuse of materials during the operation carried out jointly by the City of Avignon, Safran and Guintoli in the old center, on the axis between rue Carreterie and Place Carnot. The objective of the community was to discourage transit traffic in favor of encouraging “virtuous travel”on foot or by bike, to restore quality of life and islands of freshness in an ensemble considered too mineral.

But such an ambition was coupled with another recommendation: sobriety ! “The question of management was considered from the start,” confides Hélène Bailly-Maître. The revegetation took the form of the planting of 24 trees to help with dewatering, but “prioritizing quality over quantity”insists Benoît Campion. Several choices marked this site on which “the exceptional of 10 or 15 years ago becomes the ordinary”, he continues.

One of the ideas was to “reuse without transforming surface materials”. The reuse of paving stones took place partially on the site (100 m2), in addition to reused paving stones from other construction sites, and more predominantly on other city projects (800 m2) or in storage (660 m2) for future use, such as for street furniture.

For the architect, while it is always possible to imagine solutions to best adjust his practice, not everything is possible. “Stones were poured into the concrete and cannot be recovered. In addition, we have lost the know-how of stone today because we cannot maintain it with a spoonful of craftsmen,” he notes, aware that the imperatives of costs and deadlines impact certain “good ideas”. When it’s not access to skills. “Reuse requires labor”, he slips. For both speakers, it is in any case important to “think far in advance” such projects to study the best opportunities and guarantee clear choices.

© JC Barla – Benoît Campion, urban architect, worked on the restructuring with reuse of materials of the Carreterie-Carnot axis in Avignon.

An urban forest in

The second example combines the City of Nice, Ingerop and Garelli, and is located in the center of the Riviera city, launched in the pursuit of its “green flow” of the Paillon promenade, with, in perspective, the planting of a urban forest over 20 hectares (8 hectares of permeable soil and 1,500 trees of species adapted to the Mediterranean climate), to give the people of Nice a new framework of freshness and well-being.

This vast project involved the demolition of the city’s national theater and the Acropolis convention center. Approximately 200,000 tonnes of concrete were destroyed, crushed and recycled at 90 % in the urban perimeter. Marble slabs were reused. The acceptability of the project was managed by a dedicated office where citizens could express their grievances and questions (petitions had been launched against the destruction of Acropolis). The solutions adopted in order to“adapt what exists to combat the effects of climate change” have earned Ingérop, the project manager linked to town planning Alexandre Chemetoff et Associés, the 2024 National Engineering Grand Prize in October.

The urban forest will rest on historic concrete vaults originally designed to cover the bed of the Paillon watercourse. “We had to take these vaults as they were initially, with their faults, and push the reflection to the end. There is a lot of education to be done on greening in the city,” explains Guillaume Chauvin, project director for Ingérop in Nice. Actierra, for his part, imagined a drainage and rainwater management system by pipes and a 650 m tank3 to ensure a supply of the future autonomous forest at 100 % on water resources, even in the middle of summer, whereas, in the past, the choice of watering would have taken precedence.

Delivery is scheduled for the end of 2025. For Pierre-Paul Bernardi, general manager of Garelli, “the success of the first phase of the Paillon promenade has generated a lot of expectations for the second, because the population has taken to the place well. But we must have transparency on the visibility of the progress of the projects to give ourselves every chance that it goes well.”

© JCB – Pierre-Paul Bernardi (Barelli) and Guillaume Chauvin (Ingérop) were mobilized on phase 2 of the green flow in Nice.

Tools to reduce the environmental impact of construction sites

For Sophie Cahen, “the ecological transition is already underway, we have come a long way since 1990. We think that the fight against global warming will be against businesses and their growth. This is not the case, let’s have a more positive vision! Infrastructures are at the heart of this transition, they are a solution, whether in mobility, energy, buildings. It’s important to put things into perspective.”

Recalling that“being against does not make for good lobbying”she invites the leaders present in the room to transform themselves, to take the subject head on, by exploiting the tools made available by the FNTP to help them.

Like Seve TP, a “eco-comparator for reduce the environmental impacts of construction sites », with several indicators, which offer “a common, simple, transparent, verifiable and verified language” to find a method and transition keys.

It also warns of the increasing importance of the label in public markets. CSR-TP which helps to better promote the performance of the companies that commit. InfraClimate also makes it possible to visualize exposure to climate risks on infrastructure assets (road structures, bridges, wastewater treatment plants, etc.) and in particular their vulnerabilities, with examples of solutions.

“We must acculturate ourselves to this effort of adaptation to avoid mal-adaptation. Public works companies are key players in preserving biodiversitythey can go even further in ecological engineering,” she assures, arguing that it is not enough to approach the question only from the angle of standards, which are increasingly restrictive and restrictive to the point of becoming “brakes” to evolution, but “by agreeing to rethink our relationship to risk”.

Finally, it encourages training, with the platform TP School Tomorrowof the FNTP, with a view to carrying out its transformation. For Lauriane Traub, general secretary of the FRTP, two sessions will be held in the first half of 2025 on environmental performance and the circular economy.

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