Four years after agreeing their first partnership, Bouygues Construction and Noé Conservation have strengthened their collaboration intended to protect urban biodiversity. This is a vital initiative: 93% of French people questioned¹ believe it is important to develop green spaces in cities and 75% of them¹ consider that it would be possible to create them in their own cities.

The new patronage agreement that Bouygues Construction has signed with Noé will run for three years and has four principal focuses:

• The creation of an observation centre on uses and expectations relating to urban biodiversity. This national platform, based on citizen science, will aim to improve knowledge about biodiversity in urban areas and will seek to encourage a movement shared by a range of stakeholders including the scientific community, environmental protection organisations and partners. Its objective is to improve the sharing of experience and to make progress collectively on the theme of biodiversity.
   
• Support for the "Jardins de Noé" initiative, a widespread network of private gardens and green spaces owned by councils and businesses which welcome biodiversity.
   
• Promotion of features intended to foster biodiversity in property projects. Noé Conservation will develop educational measures targeting all players in the property sector, highlighting the role of biodiversity in fostering quality of life and collective well-being.
   
• Support for Bouygues Construction in creating training modules on biodiversity. This training will raise the level of skills of the Group's teams, and introduce them to the use of tools for managing biodiversity. It will offer keys for delivering solutions that meet the needs of customers, devising a regional project, limiting the impact of construction, etc.

Bouygues Construction puts sustainable construction at the heart of its strategy. Protecting and promoting biodiversity are major components in its policy. The alliance with Noé on urban biodiversity follows upon two partnerships previously concluded, one concerning gardens and green spaces, the other street lighting (which led to the launch of the Sustainable Lighting Charter in 2013). In addition, the two partners have jointly created Biositiv, a structure that offers a complete range of service relating to biodiversity for infrastructures projects.

Noé Conservation's urban biodiversity programme has been recognised by the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy's National Strategy for Biodiversity.

For information (in French) on Noé Conservation's previous urban biodiversity initiatives (Street Lighting and Biodiversity and Les Jardins de Noé), see www.noeconservation.org (Nos Programmes / Eclairage durable et Biodiversité and Nos Programmes / Jardins de Noé)