Press release

BOUYGUES CONSTRUCTION LAUNCHES ITS FIRST “CAMPUS INNOVATION”

22-09-2014

On October 7, Bouygues Construction will be holding its first “Campus Innovation” at Challenger, its head office in Guyancourt, near Paris. The aim of the event is to showcase innovations that are drivers of sustainable construction. Consisting of seven round table discussions and more than forty-five stands, the Campus Innovation will be open to the Group’s customers and partners, as well as members of the general public, who can register on the www.campusinnovation2014.com website.

Yves Gabriel, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bouygues Construction, said: “The construction sector has undergone unprecedented change in the past few years, and this has caused us to rethink our industrial methods. To support this rapid transformation, Bouygues Construction is more than ever focused on innovation, seen from both a societal and a technical standpoint.”
 
Philippe Van de Maele, Director of Innovation and Sustainable Construction at Bouygues Construction, added: “We want to demonstrate Bouygues Construction’s capacity to work alongside academics, industrial players and NGOs, and to enable our customers to benefit from this ecosystem.”
 
During the day, there will be an exhibition featuring more than 45 stands displaying:                      
- the Group’s innovations, including a drone designed by Bouygues Energies & Services, a demonstration of robots by Bouygues Travaux Publics and a showroom of digital innovations
- innovations by partners, including Renault (the Eco2Charge project for smart management of energy storage systems using second-life electric vehicle batteries), Saint-Gobain (electrochrome glass, luminous partitions, etc.), the start-up DualSun (hybrid solar panels), etc.
 
In the afternoon, there will be a series of round table discussions, during which prominent players, be they urban planners, specialists, industrial operators or decision-makers, will share their experience. Speakers at the event will include Bertrand Delcambre, France’s ambassador for digital technology in the construction sector; Jérôme Gatier, Director of France’s Sustainable Construction Plan; Nicolas Michelin, architect and urban planner; Patrick Braouezec, President of the Plaine Commune urban community; and Edouard Philippe, Mayor of Le Havre and Député for Seine-Maritime. They will discuss major issues relating to sustainable construction, to urban development, to new methods of funding for major projects, to the rehabilitation of existing building stock and to energy performance. At 6:00 pm, a session on the theme of “the sustainable and connected city”, chaired by Yves Gabriel, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will bring the day to a close.
 
There will also be guided tours of Challenger, which is one of the first renovated positive-energy buildings. Numerous innovations have been developed or adapted in the context of this renovation to reduce the building’s consumption and use local natural resources for energy production.

​Challenger is the first building in the world to have obtained the highest level of triple certification: HQE® (Passeport Bâtiment Durable – Exceptional level), LEED® Platinum and BREEAM® Outstanding.
 
For several years now, the Group has been committed to a dynamic approach to innovation with a view to inventing the city of tomorrow alongside its partners, seeking to provide all its stakeholders with sustainable solutions, whether societal or technical.
 
Each year, Bouygues Construction devotes half of its R&D and innovation budget to sustainable construction, to design new uses, improve the performance of materials and equipment, guarantee safety, optimise construction times, and reduce environmental impact.
 
The Group is in no doubt that digital modelling is the future and that it represents a major source of progress. It has also undertaken a process of modernising its businesses to meet the new challenges of construction, in which BIM (Building Information Modeling) is playing a key part in the shift to more industrial construction methods, allowing us to significantly reduce lead times and costs, which will be in everyone’s interest.
 
For more information, visit www.campusinnovation2014.com