Elcimaï’s Sustainable Industrial Envelope : An Innovative Real Estate Solution to Decarbonize Industry
To address the urgent need to reindustrialize France while taking energy challenges into account, the Elcimaï Group has designed and patented a real estate solution that promises to decarbonize industry : the Sustainable Industrial Envelope (EID®).
The Sustainable Industrial Envelope, a solution to decarbonize industry.
On the eve of an unprecedented energy crisis, and faced with the urgent need to reindustrialize France, innovative solutions must be implemented. The Association of Real Estate Directors (ADI), which includes real estate directors from large corporations, SMEs, and mid-sized companies, as well as experts, has just put forward 12 proposals in its “Manifesto for Reindustrialization”*.
As a member of the ADI working group tasked with developing these proposals, Elcimaï has designed and patented a real estate solution intended to address a key expectation of industrial players : low-carbon production.
“The Sustainable Industrial Envelope combines two essential assets to enable carbon-free industrial production : the reversibility of the production facility and the recycling of raw materials,” explains Christophe Chauvet, Director of Development at Elcimaï and a member of the ADI. “To this end, it was designed to offer companies significant flexibility regarding site equipment, particularly in terms of fluids and energy. The use of hydrogen, for example, is made
possible.”
Elcimaï and Schneider Electric have thus agreed to deploy a building management system (BMS) dedicated to optimizing energy consumption and intelligently managing the site’s utilities and safety systems (heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting). This system allows for real-time monitoring of the industrial site’s status and activity via dashboards and enables long-term analysis to achieve a 30 % reduction in energy consumption compared to a conventionally managed building. By additionally utilizing an energy monitoring solution, the tenant company can aim for an additional 10 to 20 % reduction in consumption through the tracking of energy performance indicators during the operational phase. The leading flexible Enterprise Asset Management (EAM®) platform in the cloud, enabling digital site management, is also offered.
“We worked in a multidisciplinary manner, under the direction of Hervé Marcastel, Business Unit Manager at Elcimaï Ingénierie, with architects, IT specialists, and engineers from within the Elcimaï Group to develop the EID® digital twin,” adds Christophe Chauvet. This is the building’s digital model, which allows us to select, depending on the project, energy sources, insulation, the level of skylighting, and so on. The digital model calculates carbon, energy, and financial metrics, enabling the building to achieve “net-zero energy” and a low carbon footprint.”
The EPA Sénart – Elcimaï Factory of the Future : a carbon-neutral industrial site unique in the Île-de-France region,
designed according to the Sustainable Industrial Envelope.
The Sustainable Industrial Envelope is being implemented in the Île-de-France region, at the Cesson-Savigny site, in collaboration with EPA Sénart and local and regional elected officials. Elcimaï has spearheaded a 20,000 m² factory project, a target size that aligns with the investment levels of major industrial initiatives launched by CAC 40 companies and mid-sized firms.
“Against a backdrop of dwindling supplies and a sharp rise in the cost of fossil fuels, EPA Sénart and Elcimaï are offering Industry of the Future stakeholders a production site, ready for construction, whose design incorporates a maximum share of bio-based materials, provides for the recycling of raw materials, and utilizes a range of energy solutions enabling a shift toward self-consumption and ‘zero-carbon’ production,” explains Christophe Chauvet.
Elcimaï has worked with EPA Sénart on land flexibility, allowing the site area to be adjusted based on the size of the factory ultimately built, ranging from 4 to 8.6 hectares. A building permit application was processed in 8 months, whereas typical processing times are much longer. Another innovation : this inherently flexible project has obtained an ICPE classification subject to
registration (E) and declaration (D). This eliminates the review and appeal period, which can take up to 10 months. “This means that once a manufacturer secures this site, they can begin operations within 10 months.” A record-breaking timeline to address urgent reindustrialization needs.
This real estate program is being marketed by BNP PARIBAS REAL ESTATE/JLL and CBRE