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Nexans formalizes its actions in favor of sustainable transport with FRET21

Category: portraits | Published on : 23/03/21

NEXANS: CSR commitments FRET 21

PORTRAIT

Nexans is a global player in the cable industry and in solutions dedicated to power and data transmission. By recently announcing its ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030, the Group is confirming the desire of its teams to work on more environmentally friendly transport. The trigger was the will of one man, close to retirement: Alain Willaey, Nexans' European Transport Purchasing Manager. He did not want to leave the company where he had spent almost 50 years without having initiated an environmental initiative. He therefore approached the AUTF to work on joining the FRET21 scheme. All the teams in the Transport Management France (TMF) department were mobilised around this project.
Joining the FRET21 scheme supports the group's approach, by proposing structuring tools and concrete courses of action that are comparable from one company to another.

Voluntary concrete actions
In order to ensure that everyone in the company feels involved in this movement, Marie Letailleux, CSR manager, and Julien Cintrat, transport project manager, decided to initiate the process. They set up actions on a limited perimeter, initially limited to France and Belgium. The aim is to obtain objective and comparable data on the impact of the GHG reduction actions implemented. In a second phase, we plan to extend it more widely within the Group. On the advice of the teams at FRET21 and the EVE programme, the Transport Purchasing Department is listing various actions on which to focus. During this first year of commitment, these are oriented on three axes:
- Filling Rate,
- responsible purchasing
- and the means of transport.

The actions chosen combine several levers to maximise the impact in terms of GHG savings.
For example, the multimodal transport set up for cross-border goods flows not only makes it possible to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the use of rail transport, but also helps to optimise the Filling Rate of trucks. Indeed, in the case of a road-rail modal shift, the maximum authorised payload of trucks is increased from 25 to 29 tonnes (the total rolling weight is thus increased from 40 to 44 tonnes). This measure alone allows us to remove nearly 100 trucks per year from the roads," says Julien Cintrat. By using rail segments with an average length of 600 kilometres, we save over 500 tonnes of CO2. Multimodal transport has been adopted for France-Italy flows. It is also planned as part of the approach with FRET21 for France-Belgium, France-Spain and France-Scandinavia flows.

Acting on the entire value chain
Nexans' teams are aware that their actions alone are not enough. " We must act throughout the value chain, both internally and externally," says Marie Letailleux. The company's partners must therefore also get involved. We are now identifying and working with an increasing number of transporters who have the Objective CO2 charter," she says. For our partners who are not, we encourage them to sign up to this same type of approach. Nexans' customers are also increasingly demanding clean transport. The FRET21 approach is therefore both environmentally friendly and a source of future contracts with players who want to be part of this virtuous circle.

Another action carried out as part of the commitment to FRET21, Nexans Nanterre has acquired a truck running on compressed natural gas (CNG) for deliveries in the Paris region. This logistics centre is an exception in the Group's logistics organisation, due to its particularities and its reactivity requirements, and benefits from a fleet owned by the company. " Since we had control over the vehicles, we tried the experiment with this first purchase," explains Benoît Binet, Director of the Nanterre Logistics and Solutions Centre and Head of Greater Paris. He is also pleased with the performance of the new vehicle, which is three times quieter and has reduced CO2 emissions by 90% and fine particles by 75%.

Nexans is a major player in the energy transition
Beyond the CSR, purchasing and transport departments, there is a powerful impetus within the Group itself. It clearly states its transition policy in favour of sustainability. In February 2020, during the presentation of the company's annual results, the emphasis was placed on the 3 Ps (People, Profit, Planet), a system that is essential for sustainable success in every sense of the term.
Christopher Guérin, Chief Executive Officer, also announced to the shareholders the Group's intention to contribute to carbon neutrality by 2030.
The commitment to the FRET21 scheme, which was initiated before this announcement, thus takes on its full importance as a direct contributor to this ambitious objective.
The Group is already thinking about the next steps in this commitment: extending the scope of the actions already taken (Filling Rate, multimodal, etc.) to the company's 120,000 shipments in Europe, implementing merrouting for transport flows with Scandinavia, etc. And tomorrow, perhaps act on a global level.