Energy consumption has a negative impact on the depletion of the world's natural resources and on the overall increase in greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to global warming. Moreover, energy-related atmospheric emissions undermine public health. The consumption of fossil-based energy sources requires the development and maintenance of vast supply chains that pose major impacts on geopolitical balance and heavy infrastructure networks that generate enormous amounts of waste.
It is time to move away from fossil fuels and to reduce our overall energy needs.
All of our projects and all aspects of our company's operation contribute towards achieving that goal. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly seek a balance between reducing energy demand and producing renewable energy. As mobility stakeholders, we have broadened our area of focus to include neighbourhoods, cities, and larger regions.
Whatever their scale, construction projects undergo the same life cycle. They involve materials, which are moved around, transformed and then ultimately discarded. In a world of finite resources, our responsibility as designers is to ensure that these material streams recirculate.
Conceiving a project under the constraints existing situations is in our DNA and thereby constitutes the best method for conserving materials. The use of renewable, bio-sourced materials or the reuse of existing construction is key to improving the materials' life cycle.
The flow of materials also relates to the life of buildings with regard to water consumption and discharge as well as the production of industrial waste. Reducing the material stream requires expertise in the development of exterior spaces, in fluid mechanics engineering and innovative waste management.
AREP brings together all of these areas of expertise.
Greenhouse gas emissions and their associated carbon index are at the heart of the environmental strategies discussed at international conferences (Conferences of Parties). These strategies are implemented at the National, Regional and Metropolitan levels.
We are currently working on the embedding of a carbon budget in our Project Management Dashboard.
Carbon metrics has thus become a decision-making criterion throughout the design process and objectifies the environmental impact of our projects.
This analytical approach, which is combined with the measurement of the projected carbon sequestration over the project lifetime, allows us to help our clients achieve carbon neutrality.
For over 20 years climate change has been under scrutiny and its consequences are now being increasingly understood and perceived.
In the near future, the regions in which we operate will be faced with sharper and more frequent temperature peaks, especially heat peaks, as well as with more frequent and violent weather phenomena, such as severe storms.
The projects we take on, first and foremost and at an urban scale, contribute greatly to territorial resilience. We systematically explore the possibility of creating pockets of cool air, cool shelters, and study the site's atmospheric profile and its ability to buffer rainwater.
In keeping with climate challenges, we tackle all aspects related to sensory comfort and air quality through applied research activities in the fields of social sciences and complex thermal and aeraulic modelling.
Along with carbon dioxide emissions, the loss of biodiversity poses a major threat to the global balance. Because of our areas of expertise, we are responsible for ensuring that living beings can live side-by-side with buildings.
By focusing on uses, biophilic layouts, and the ability of the envelope to integrate into ecosystems or public realm spaces, we increase the value of projects.
This approach enables us to expand the services we provide, to raise user awareness, to create environmental value and to ensure, as much as possible, that there is a place for all living things (plants, insects, animals, and humans) in our projects.