Nicolas Notebaert - Concessions de VINCI x World Impact Summit

Absolutely. I would say that in the 60s and 70s, broadly speaking, it was growth, so a concession was to build, to expand, to build additional lanes on motorways, to build terminals. And today, the strength of the concession model is that we have pivoted, as they say, to decarbonizing usage. So it allows us to build high-speed lines—we designed, financed and now operate Tours-Bordeaux—but it also allows, for example, to install electric charging stations on motorways, to ensure their resilience, because we know that there are more and more harsh climate events. So it is a very relevant model for the future, because we have time ahead of us to invest and further improve the use of motorways, airports, or railways.

So there are two good visions and two bad ones. The good visions are always having a strategic and piloting state, so there is a decarbonation plan with objectives like the Paris Climate Agreement negotiations between states, and these are necessary. And the two bad things that must be avoided at all costs are standards and taxes. Standards, because it is not the pile of extra standards that will push companies' ambition. I am an entrepreneur; as soon as we exceed three objectives, we don't manage our company well. That is why in climate matters at VINCI, we set ourselves three: reduce our carbon emissions—really, we do it. In concessions, we have reduced our own emissions by 50% since 2018. Manage our waste: no more waste going to landfill, we value our waste, we sort it. And finally, water and biodiversity, that is the natural environment. That is a real ambition. The 1,200 points of the CSRD, that is not a good ambition; it is undoubtedly a good intention at the start, but translated into an excess of standards. And the other factor to avoid at all costs is taxes. We have a level of taxation on consumption, on companies, general taxation that is too high. And you know, taking from one side to spend on the other is not efficient. So the concession model is not that. It is, in short, I create a company that for years has ambitions, has capital, raises debt for many uses, notably decarbonation, and that creates much more value for the infrastructure and for the country than again standardizing and taxing, which puts constraints and increasingly limits the base from which the French benefit.

We work in good intelligence with the politicians. The way our concession contracts are granted to us by local authorities or by the state, we are decentralizers. All local authorities from different political backgrounds are rather good managers of concession contracts. Most of our airports, the tunnels we manage, for example for the Marseille metropolis, are managed by local concession contracts that work well. The state was for a very long time and can become again a good concession grantor. What is important is that it continues to see the interest for its citizens of the concession, which equips, modernizes, recognizes the value of our infrastructure, which is world-class, unmatched, rather than the daily small flow of sterile debates about whether companies earn too much or not enough money. So let's rediscover the meaning of the interest of concessions, that is, equip, modernize, ensure a service for our citizens. And in this sense, our partnership with public local authorities, when they are aligned with this objective in the form of public-private partnerships, works well. France invented concessions: the Suez Canal, it was French; Eurotunnel, motorway networks, airports. Today we can reinvent this model of concession by decarbonizing it, and I trust the political class you speak of, because I think the majority of them increasingly feel the interest of using this model.