« We have set ourselves ambitious decarbonisation commitments. »

Workshops, conferences, round tables: on 4 April 2023, nearly 500 people took part in the second edition of the Local Climate Conference proposed by Rennes Métropole to better understand the challenges of climate change and their impact on the territory. The conference concluded with a desire to strengthen collective action to find solutions.

One of the day’s workshops had a deliberately provocative title: « Climate: are companies doing enough? » M-extend was invited to speak, as well as the director of Treebal (involved in the Convention des Entreprises pour le Climat), a consultant from the Carbone 4 agency recently set up in Rennes and the deputy director of Rennes metropole in charge of strategy, development and planning.

Objectives: decarbonisation

« Are companies doing enough? » While the answer to the question is obviously no (as it is for all of us), the testimony of Frédéric Martin, President of M-Extend, an international industrial group that employs nearly 800 people in its agricultural loader factory in Acigné, near Rennes, made it possible to take into account the difficulty of the changes to come. « We have set ourselves ambitious decarbonisation targets for all our production and transport activities by 2030. This means rethinking our manufacturing processes and our freight strategy, » he explains, laying his cards on the table: the company publishes its sustainable development report every year, with figures. But the entrepreneur, who is part of the « ACT Step by Step » initiative proposed by Ademe, deplores the fact that not more players in the region are sharing their good practices.

Climate: Rennes Métropole wants to play together.

Rennes Métropole is currently revising its Territorial Climate Air and Energy Plan (PCAET) for the next six years and must now develop a trajectory that will enable it to project itself beyond 2030. Olivier Dehaese, its vice-president for climate and energy, knows that the community alone will not be able to do everything. He is proposing that all the players interested in the co-construction of this ambitious project meet again, without waiting for next year, on 16 June, for a new working session where concrete action will have its place.