JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #113 - June 2017 - 42

CONSTRUCTION
sustainable development

"The world of composite materials
must align the planets"
testimony
©Isabelle Franciosa

Fabrice Bonnifet, Managing Director of Sustainable Development and QSE
for the Bouygues Group, talks to us about the practical consequences of the
COP21 agreements and opening up prospects for composite materials in the
construction sector.

FabricE bonniFEt,
Managing Director of Sustainable
Development, Bouygues Group

excluding the operation of engineering
works, comes from the materials used for
shell construction (cement + steel).

e live in a world of finite resources,
and that is a fact! We now have
to reinvent a growth and development approach that is compatible with
ecosystem restoration.
From now on, any contemporary enterprise
with an awareness of the real importance
of preserving resources must commit to
corporate social responsibility. Sustainable
development consists of bringing together
the best in social and technical advances to
generate measurable sustainable progress for
both humans and the planet. Insofar as the
construction market produces about a fourth
of global CO2 emissions, it has a strong bearing on energy transition issues.
Energy transition
These days, composite materials are already
being used in certain building components.
In terms of global carbon cost, composite
materials are often more efficient than standard materials, and so they help to reduce the
carbon footprint of buildings.
As a leader in building and construction,
Bouygues is in the vanguard for innovation in
its sector. For example, the Group develops
both high-performance concretes that are of
great interest to architects for complex engineering works, and environment-friendly
"low-carbon" concretes. The leading source
of greenhouse gas emissions in construction,

Advantage 1: Low weight
In some cases, there are advantages to using
composite materials in buildings. They are
strong and durable, and they make it possible
to use fewer raw materials for structural purposes. We have known for some time that the
use of composites in all types of vehicles leads
to significant savings in energy consumption,
thanks to the weight savings compared to
standard materials.
Advantage 2: the magic of strength
Thanks to composite materials, and in particular to their exceptional strength, we can

now build structural components that could
not be achieved using standard materials.
The extraordinary thing about composites is
their extremely high strength in combination
with their low volume and low weight. The
problem that remains is their manufacturing
cost: in terms of overall costs, they are not
often recommended by either architects or
developers, but I remain confident. If you
consider the case of photovoltaic panels, they
were so expensive that they were considered
as a luxury, ten years ago. Nevertheless, solar
power has still developed all over the world,
prices have dropped, and now it is the cheapest energy worldwide in terms of euros/
installed capacity, which is a good thing for
the planet.
Due to the lower cost of solar panels, we can

jec composites magazine / No113 June 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #113 - June 2017