Climate and ecological transition cannot be decreed. It is built on the ground, project after project, through development choices that are capable of responding to climate requirements, biodiversity issues, and new uses for sites undergoing rehabilitation.
ECT designs each of its projects as a lever to transform unused sites for the benefit of local communities, creating the natural, agricultural, and recreational spaces of tomorrow while strengthening local resilience.
ECT, an operational player in regional transition
Local authorities and developers face complex requirements :
- Reducing carbon footprint
- Adapting to the effects of climate change
- Preserving resources and living organisms
- While meeting economic and social needs
The redevelopment projects carried out by ECT are precisely in line with this equation. Our projects give new life to brownfield sites and abandoned land. They directly implement the principles of a circular economy for excavated soil, which ensures the financing of the project and its implementation at no cost to the community.
We act as an operational link in regional transition strategies through concrete implementation in the field.
Designing useful, sustainable and multifunctional facilities
Projects are designed in partnership with local authorities by ECT developers, ecologists and landscape architects, in association with external engineering firms. They are based on eco-design principles :
- Multifunctionality of projects : consideration of societal (new uses) and environmental issues
- Use of natural water dynamics
- Diversity of restored natural environments
- Anticipating long-term management constraints
The aim is to create robust, low-impact developments that are useful to the region over the long term.
Supporting the climate and ecological transition in concrete terms
The transition of territories requires responsible, measurable and reproducible development choices. Our partnership model with local authorities focuses on acting locally to address global impacts, transforming environmental constraints into levers for resilience, and designing projects that serve territories and their inhabitants in a sustainable inhabitants.
Mitigating climate change through sober, circular development
The first contribution to the climate transition is the effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at local level.
ECT projects enable :
- Limiting the transport of excavated soil thanks to an optimized territorial network. In 2024, this proximity enabled a 43% reduction in GHG emissions.
- Reusing excavated soil locally as raw material for our projects, significantly reducing long-distance transport and associated emissions. The excavated soil used in our projects comes from local construction sites.
- Sustainably sequester carbon through large-scale planting of vegetation.
On a regional scale, this means fewer trucks, lower emissions, and greater territorial and local consistency.
Adapting territories to the effects of climate change
Climate transition also means preparing regions for more frequent torrential rains and heat waves, as well as longer periods of drought.
Our non-built developments incorporate these issues right from the design stage.
- Permeable soils and optimized infiltration to manage rainwater and limit the risk of flooding
- Optimized design of peripheral ditches to turn them into functional wetlands that play a hydraulic and ecological role
- Woodlands, meadows, and vegetation corridors that create islands of coolness
The result : 95% of soils are permeable and functional, contributing to the climate resilience of the regions.
Restoring biodiversity as a territorial infrastructure
Biodiversity is not just an aesthetic “bonus.” It is a living infrastructure that is essential to the balance of our regions.
Our projects aim to achieve a positive biodiversity balance by integrating :
- Renaturation of diverse and locally adapted environments
- Restoration and creation of wetlands
- Strengthening green and blue networks
- Protection of species and consideration of pollinators
During the work, specific devices are installed (shelters, hibernacula, microhabitats) and plans to combat invasive alien species are implemented, with the aim of reducing the areas affected by 80%.
Each year, between 10,000 and 50,000 trees are planted using local species that are adapted to future climatic conditions. Whenever possible, we work directly with the Végétal Local label.
Example : the creation of a wetland during agricultural rehabilitation in Roissy-en-Brie (77), reconciling hydraulic, ecological, and agricultural issues for the benefit of the region.
Soil, the foundation of the ecological transition
A resilient territory depends on living, functional soil.
Our commitments :
- 100% traceability of inert soil received on our projects
- Combating erosion by adapting the project’s contours and slopes based on a hydrogeological study of the site.
- Reuse of high-quality soil or recreation of fertile horizons suited to the site’s future uses
Fertile substrates : a concrete response to land and material sobriety
To limit the use of topsoil, a resource that must be preserved, ECT develops 100% recycled fertile substrates from inert soil from urban construction sites and green waste compost.
These technosols avoid the need for large-scale imports of topsoil and meet the ecological requirements for recreating specific ecological environments (calcareous grasslands, mesophilic grasslands, woodlands). These fertile substrates are manufactured on site, further enhancing the circularity of excavated soil.
Example : 17 hectares of technosols produced in situ to plant the future Jacques Chirac park in Chelles (77) on the Sempin site.
