Agenda 21

Our goal is to assert our societal responsibility and commitment to sustainable development by expanding and implementing the Institute’s Agenda 21 approach.

With regard to sustainable development, IFSTTAR is building on foundations laid by the LCPC and INRETS before the merger.

In particular, in 2009, the LCPC carried out a carbon audit and set up a number of working groups to put in place a full Agenda 21 action programme for its entire staff. IFSTTAR’s approach is thus the outcome of a limited diagnosis which now needs to be adopted by and extended to the institute as a whole.

With regard to INRETS, the Bron site in particular was involved in collective actions on the Bron campus during which it enables to set up regular actions to raise awareness of sustainable development (Sustainable Development Week, for example).

IFSTTAR’s goals and performance contract [KR1] commits it to developing and implementing a comprehensive Agenda 21 action programme for the entire Institute by integrating existing local actions within a single shared system. 

Carrying out a greenhouse gas audit will mark an important step for the Institute. Furthermore, the Institute is engaged in many actions which come under Agenda 21 as they relate to the three main pillars of sustainable development.

• From the environmental point of view, the approach will very much rely on the greenhouse gas audit. This was conducted in 2007 for the LCPC and evaluated its GHG emissions at 1730 tonnes of carbon equivalent, i.e. 3.1 tonnes of carbon equivalent per staff member. The goal that was set in 2009 of reducing emissions by 30% by 2020 has been kept, and translates as a target of 2.5 tonnes of carbon equivalent for each employee by 2016.
  
  
• With regard to society, the Agenda 21 action plan will be closely linked to the Institute’s Imagine IFSTTAR project, which is a strategy for the Institute as a whole that will generate many sustainable development actions.
  
  
• Last, from the economic standpoint, the Agenda 21 action programme will improve the operation of the Institute, in particular as a result of energy savings.