The former Signify site, now owned by Goodman France, has been deconstructed, delivering tonnes of materials that will now have a second life. From a building the size of six football fields, Goodman and its partners have recovered a treasure trove of materials including 20 kilometres of electrical wire, 136 radiators and 44,400 tonnes of concrete.
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Since 2019, Goodman France has focused all its new projects on industrial brownfields to combat soil artificialisation, staying ahead of the 2021 Resilience and Climate law and the goal of achieving net zero artificialisation by 2050. The property group targets sites which can be regenerated into alternative uses - such as the Signify site in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, closed in 2022.
Goodman's urban regeneration strategy prioritises locations in dense urban areas, close to existing multimodal infrastructure, to enable industrial, digital, and logistics activities. Goodman aims to be a driving force in urban revitalisation, job creation, and sustainable real estate.
Goodman's environmental approach to focus on creating low carbon projects is a comprehensive process, starting with strategic site selection, moving to the upstream stage of redevelopment: the deconstruction process, then extending to the operational efficiency of the building.
Circular deconstruction: works within the works
In October 2022, Goodman, along with its partners, commenced the circular deconstruction of the former Signify site in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. With a waste recovery rate reaching 99,2%, Goodman goes beyond the French regulations – which require a minimum recovery rate of 70%, and avoids precious materials going unnecessarily to landfill.
Circular deconstruction is performed in two distinct stages, unlike traditional demolition.
"The upstream stage involves creating a precise site diagnosis, allowing us to qualify and quantify the elements constituting the building," explains Carole Counan, project manager at DELEO, a subsidiary of the GINGER Group, an engineering company specialising in construction, environment, and sustainability. "Once all the PEMD (Products-Equipment-Materials-Waste) have been identified, we determine various possible treatments for each, prioritising reuse and recycling, with the goal of avoiding disposal."
This is followed by the actual deconstruction operation: the careful dismantling of elements intended for a second life and the precise sorting of materials for recovery where they are reused or recycled, makes the process much longer than traditional demolition. François-Xavier Petit, the sales director at EPC DEMOSTEN, a company specialising in selective deconstruction, asbestos removal, and precision demolition, explains, "Goodman's deconstruction project represented 11,700 hours of work, twice as long as a non-circular project, to dismantle, sort, clean, and sometimes crush each element, before being redeployed in other channels."
Over the nine-month circular deconstruction project, 38 companies, associations, and cooperatives, involving over 120 people, contributed to achieving a recovery rate of over 99.2%.
Recovering materials and creating value from brownfields is a crucial link in the chain of sustainable real estate.
"What is sometimes still considered waste by the construction industry has become a resource for an entire ecosystem focused on circularity. New channels have significantly developed in recent years, parallel to the growing expertise of deconstruction companies in the field. As the first step in any project-level environmental strategy, circularity in the deconstruction phase is expected to become more widespread, especially as costs and time requirements decrease. These methods, applied to all our urban operations since 2020, are well-received by the elected officials and local authorities we work with," explains Philippe Arfi, the general manager of Goodman France.
The Municipality and Goodman have also established a working group to determine the vision for the site's redevelopment into a dynamic and attractive economic hub, promoting the creation of numerous jobs. This collaboration between the Villeneuve-Saint-Georges city council members and Goodman, as well as the success of the first stage of the process, reflects a shared commitment to an environmentally respectful urban renewal policy.
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Key figures of the circular deconstruction
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- 14 hectares of land
- 6 hectares of buildings
- 9 months of work
- 38 companies, associations and cooperatives
- 123 people
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Reuse
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Recycling
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- 2 generators
- 2 motor pumps
- 1 transformer
- 17 sanitary utilities
- 960 square meters of mezzanine
- 1,289 light fixtures
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- 20 kilometres of electrical wire
- 136 radiators
- 1,190 square metres of windows
- 2,700 square metres of false ceiling tiles
- 55,000 square meters of metal roofing
- 44,400 tonnes of concrete
- 12 tonnes of rock wool on a test site with an insulation manufacturer
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More information about our partners :
- Ginger DELEO - Engineering office for asbestos disposal and deconstruction , www.ginger-deleo.com
- EPC DEMOSTEN, specialist company for asbestos disposal, selective deconstruction and demolition www.epc-demosten.fr
