Colas Environment Day
On April 8, 2021, Colas is holding its first ever Environment Day, an event designed to allow teams across the world to learn more about climate issues. The target? To raise awareness among the Group's 55,000 employees by organizing dedicated question and answer sessions on construction sites, as well as webinars throughout Colas profit centers, industrial facilities and head offices.
Teams will talk about the climate emergency, learn what a carbon footprint is and hear more about the Group’s emission reduction commitment. In addition, they will have the opportunity to share their own ideas on how to lessen Colas’ carbon impact. There will be quizzes on topics such as fossil fuels, the
greenhouse effect, more virtuous modes of transport, direct emissions from energy consumed by Colas plants and machines, and more.
A GLOBAL GRASSROOTS LOW-CARBON AND BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN
The Colas Environment Day is one of the actions presented in the Group’s Low Carbon and Biodiversity roadmap, marking the starting point of an in-house awareness raising campaign that will be continued throughout the year via posters, videos, training, etc.
In addition to Colas Environment Day, the Group is launching a Biodiversity Day to be held across the Group’s entire network in 2021.
"Climate change and the collapse of biodiversity are two major environmental challenges we must face. To do so, we need to look at how we do business around the world in a brand-new light. We have to take these issues to heart, and make the changes we need to make. Rolling out a low carbon and biodiversity strategy to preserve the planet is one of the eight CSR commitments in our corporate project ACT (Act & Commit Together)." Anne-Laure Levent, Deputy Director of Environment at Colas.
AMBITIOUS LOW-CARBON AND BIODIVERSITY TARGETS
In December 2020, Colas announced an ambitious target, compatible with the Paris Agreement: reduce its direct greenhouse gas emissions by 30% (scopes 1 and 2) and its upstream indirect emissions by 30% (scope 3a) by 2030. The Group set these specific figures based on estimated CO2 savings made possible by actions including:
- integrating climate issues into the Group's business strategy,
- improving energy efficiency: developing tools for managing and monitoring consumption (asphalt plants, machines and vehicles), using renewable energies, promoting alternatives to roads for the transport of materials, optimizing the equipment fleet, shifting the vehicle fleet towards lowcarbon solutions, supporting behavior changes to reduce consumption, etc.,
- developing and promoting low carbon solutions: promoting warm, semi-warm, cold mixes, using bio-based materials, increasing the RAP content in mixes, growing in-place recycling, replacing existing products with low carbon products (hydraulic binders, concrete, etc.).
Colas has also set a biodiversity target: host a remarkable species or ecosystem, or beehives in each of the Group's quarries and gravel pits by 2030. The Group's extraction sites can indeed be home to remarkable pioneer species. Working hand in hand with the scientific community, Colas’ ambition is to foster ecological niches, and to make them available as educational tools for local residents and employees alike.
On each site, the Group will work closely with naturalists and beekeepers, as is already the case for the following projects:
- conservatory for black bees in the Norante quarry (France),
- bat shelter in the Bainville-sur-Madon quarry (France),
- redesigning ponds and streams in the Grand-Champ quarry (France),
- restoring salmon spawning grounds in Alaska (United States),
- planting hedges and an orchard to promote the nesting and reproduction of wild birds in the CCM quarry in Wallers-en-Fagne (France),
- participating in a European project called Life in Quarries, a network of biodiversity-friendly quarries, via two Group quarries in Belgium.
The target is also to raise employee awareness on biodiversity issues and provide tools to help roll out concrete actions to protect natural environments on Colas’ stationary sites and construction sites.
