Colas recently held Environment Day across all its locations worldwide. This year the event was dedicated to biodiversity, a major challenge for the group, which launched a low-carbon and biodiversity strategy in 2020.
The event is part of the group’s CSR strategic project called ACT (for Act & Commit Together), in which one of the eight commitments is a pledge to “roll out a low-carbon and biodiversity strategy to preserve the planet.”
Last year, the Colas Environment Day was dedicated to climate issues, and, for the 2022 edition, biodiversity was in the spotlight. Designed to reach out and involve everyone in the Colas Group, the idea of this event was to inform, explain and raise awareness about biodiversity collapse, and encourage teams to take concrete action in favor of preservation.
“Preserving biodiversity is a real challenge for the construction industry. At Colas, we are fully aware of this, which is why we are committed to a low-carbon and biodiversity strategy. As such, we have taken the lead with several actions, such as awareness campaigns and training for our employees, developing renaturing techniques, and more,” explained Anne-Laure Levent, environment director at Colas.
The Colas Environment Day serves as a highlight to a much broader set of actions in favor of biodiversity.
Since 2013, the Group has set a target of one action in favor of biodiversity in each of its quarries and gravel pits by 2030. In 2021, 207 Colas locations had at least one initiative, including restoring watercourses, building niches and shelters to serve as habitat for species, adapting activity to respect nesting periods, and more.
Among the many actions undertaken by Colas and accompanied by scientific experts, many are dedicated to protecting local species, for example Great Horned Owls, Bonelli’s Eagles or ocellated lizards.
Colas now wants to extend this objective to cover all the group’s locations. A guide to simple, easy-to-do biodiversity initiatives has been published for this purpose. Its recommendations include planting hedgerows with local species around the perimeters of Colas locations to encourage the preservation of environments and species.