VINCI on Low-Carbon Concrete and Water Infrastructure

Infrastructure operators face technical questions about material substitution rates and water systems as construction projects adapt to new environmental requirements. 

Urban areas present particular challenges due to impermeable surfaces and heat-absorbing materials that intensify climate impacts.

Dense populations and vehicle concentrations compound these effects. However, cities can adopt more active roles in sustainability efforts and contribute positively to natural systems through infrastructure interventions.

VINCI has reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 26% since 2018 and Scope 3 emissions by 4% since 2019, according to the company. 

The French multinational now sources 46% of its electricity from renewable generation and uses low-carbon concrete in 32% of applications. The company works to protect ecosystems through ecological engineering approaches and efforts to reduce soil sealing in urban projects.

Isabelle Spiegel, Vice President in charge of Environment at VINCI, spoke at the Sustainability LIVE: Leaders Summit during London Climate Action Week in June 2026 about infrastructure delivery and materials innovation in construction. 

She explained how the company sources solutions from project teams and scales technical interventions across urban infrastructure work.

In a complex sector, where do you see the opportunities?

What matters in environment and sustainability is that every person should be able to take action. Solutions come from the ground, from the field, from every single person.

That is the way to innovate. We need to develop solutions and scale up existing solutions that make sense at the local level.

Sustainable innovation mobilises people effectively. We launched an internal environment award and received strong responses. We are up to 1,000 solutions coming from our own people.

The tricky part is making sure they can be scaled up. That is why we launched another programme to ensure we can duplicate these different innovations.

What innovations are you harnessing at the moment?

The top one is about creating cooling islands in cities, and bringing nature back into cities. The core of this has four technical levers:

• The soil, because we need to bring back living soils within cities
• Nature and vegetation itself
• The colour and the type of asphalt you use
• The disconnection of stormwater from the networks, re-infiltrating it directly into the vegetation and soil.

That is one of our solutions that won the grand award two years ago. We are now scaling it up with more than 100 projects.

How is VINCI advancing a more circular economy in materials?

We started seven years ago by setting a strong target on low-carbon concrete, because we need to reduce the carbon footprint of concrete. 

One lever is to substitute one part of the cement with circular materials.

It could be waste from other industries, from steel or from energy power supply, for instance. That is a way to combine carbon and circularity into one solution.

Our target is to achieve 90% low-carbon concrete across all VINCI construction projects by 2030, which is very ambitious.

We started in France and are already up to two-thirds of low-carbon concrete, so it is working.

What does water positivity look like in heavy infrastructure?

It was important to say that we have skills in infrastructure because we help build water networks. Water infrastructure already exists, and we also have a role to play in bringing solutions.

How then to disconnect the stormwater from networks to make sure that we manage to re-infiltrate into the soil, and go back to groundwater to store water for instance? 

It is also about solutions for what we can call the reuse or re-utilisation of wastewater, to avoid the use of drinkable water.

We have solutions coming from that. We use wastewater from the municipality near our airport, for instance, to feed the airport's sanitary water. 

That is avoiding drinkable water, and this kind of solution moves toward water positivity.

How have attitudes changed throughout your 20-year career?

I see changes every two or three years more or less.

What is happening now is that we have a strong reconnection between economic impact and the need to secure energy supply, critical material supply and environmental and social considerations at the same time.

This kind of change, for me, is what makes it so powerful when you are in board-level discussions. 

It is about making sure your business remains in continuity, taking care to account for these environmental and social impacts as well.