promoting the carbon efficiency of the network

Our ’carbon approach’ must meet three challenges:
 
Proposing decision aid tools which enable projects to be ranked according to their energy and carbon efficiency
 
Minimising the carbon footprint of our activities, i.e. rethinking our project design and development methods (materials, project organisation)
 
Protecting the economic model of the company and the sector in the long term by adopting methods and an organisation that are less dependent on fossil fuel energy.

 

Assessment of greenhouse gas emissions
The carbon assessment (method put in place by ADEME) enables emissions linked to any human activity to be assessed. It is a preliminary assessment in order to design and implement strategies and actions to reduce emissions.

Réseau Ferré de France conducted its internal carbon assessment in 2009. It enables us to know the greenhouse gas emissions due to the running of the company (buildings, travel, supplies, waste, etc.) and to prepare us to apply this method to rail projects and investments.
For rail projects, the overall carbon assessment conducted for the Eastern branch of the Rhine-Rhone high speed line has enabled a simplified assessment tool to be established for the carbon content of a rail infrastructure. Completed and developed, it has been used to develop a calculation utility program used to deploy the carbon assessment method to all significant rail projects.

Made mandatory by the Grenelle 1 law, the assessment of greenhouse gas emissions over the life cycle will now be deployed to all projects managed by Réseau Ferré de France (beyond a financial threshold). The carbon assessment will then be an integral part of the guidelines for assessing projects.