Akanthas develops and markets software and hardware based on the use of AI to analyze industrial waste more easily and optimize collection and treatment operations. Autonomous image sensors installed in the field measure in real time the rate and nature of filling (skips, bins, etc.) to extract performance indicators, alerts and recommendations to help decision-making. It is one of the ten start-ups selected by Leonard to participate in the SEED 2022 program.
R.Use is a marketplace developed by Thibaut Gelain and Anne Visier for the reuse of materials and equipment from VINCI’s construction sites. The application can be used on a smartphone, computer or tablet and allows users to post ads and search for resources for construction sites, by category or by geolocation. R.Use was a finalist for the VINCI Environment Award and was admitted to LEONARD’s Intrapreneurs 2022 class to work on the deployment of the app.
What inspired you to start a business in the circular economy?
Viviana Contreras: Professional waste, especially in the construction sector, offers a significant potential for recovery. But operators in the field are paradoxically faced quite systematically with budget overruns for their treatment. This can be explained by the lack of precise estimates of the quantities of waste generated, the poor optimization of collections, the downgrading or non-compliance of certain resources, or data that is too global in relation to the reality on the ground. This also has a huge environmental cost with non-recovered waste and a high carbon footprint. However, accurate measurement and real-time characterization is essential to optimize and guarantee the sustainable development of the sector. This is what motivated the creation of Akanthas!
Anne Visier: The R.Use project was born out of a reflection by the VINCI Construction France Provence circular economy working group. In the context of our reflections, one of the needs identified was to create a tool that would help connect people with available second-hand resources and those who would need them on other sites. The goal was to go beyond direct knowledge networks to create a broader ecosystem. During the course of the project, we noticed that this type of tool is in high demand and expected: several similar initiatives were submitted to VINCI’s Environment Award and the announcement of the application’s arrival was enthusiastically welcomed by site managers and construction engineers.
Your solutions rely on the development of digital tools. Why do we need digital tools to get the circular economy in construction off the ground?
Anne Visier: In my opinion, the essential factors for the development of the circular economy are territorial anchoring, network dynamism and temporality to succeed in matching supply and demand. Digital technology allows us to create very efficient tools to answer part of the problem: R.Use allows us to create visual advertisements and to update them in real time, to access geolocation data, and temporality (with the dates of availability). We are also working on tracking the impact generated, environmental, financial, and of course on new functions to facilitate the purchasing process through the application. In short, digital is an excellent tool for networking and impact monitoring.
But digital tools do not allow everything: you also have to find a way to make people want to use them, to make life easier, to be practical. Otherwise, the tool will be created but not used. That’s the real challenge: making reuse tools intuitive and simple to foster the circular economy.
Viviana Contreras: I can add that on the ground we are often blind to waste. For years, companies have been measuring how much electricity, water or fuel they consume. This data is the key to reducing overconsumption and inefficiencies. However, when it comes to waste, companies generally measure almost nothing. The observation is clear, what is not measured does not change. To move towards a circular economy, we need to optimize at the source.
How can your solutions help the construction industry respond to changes in environmental regulations?
Viviana Contreras: In France, on the one hand, we have the Anti-waste law for a circular economy, with a very strong component on waste management for the construction sector. With the new EPR channel for the sector, precise rules on waste collection and recovery will come into force from 2023. This includes the free return of all types of construction waste when sorted. We want to help the construction sector to overcome these challenges by providing the tools to control waste and ensure its recovery.
We also have the regulatory aspects related to collection and transportation. It is important to know that when we talk about a non-optimized collection, we are talking about an underloaded or overloaded skip. In the case of overloading, the actors are confronted with road safety problems with serious sanctions and risks. We want to prevent this from happening, again by measuring the deposit at the source.
Anne Visier: R.Use is of course also part of the general framework of the anti-waste law for a circular economy (AGEC). The application should facilitate internal reuse and thus extend the resources we use on our sites and in the company. In parallel, the EPR (extended producer responsibility, based on the polluter pays principle) mentioned just now by Viviana, is also evolving and will soon be extended to the building industry (January 2023) and the TGAP (General Tax on Polluting Activities) is also rapidly increasing in the cost of waste treatment. So the more we reduce our waste, the better off we will be, both in environmental and financial terms. And R.Use also helps with this.
Finally, the current version of the RE2020 includes a zero carbon impact for resources from reuse in building projects. This demonstrates the willingness to change habits and to integrate the circular economy at all scales in construction. R.Use is not directly involved in this topic, but the application allows us to encourage this change in behavior, to encourage reuse. And the approach is so broad that every lever, every tool is important for everyone to grasp the issues and their own power to act.
What changes does your solution imply for the teams in the field?
Viviana Contreras: Our solution is designed to help decision-makers anticipate better, reduce costs, and simplify a number of activities. It does not replace the human element, nor does it allow them to monitor who is responsible for a sorting error or an anomaly. On the one hand, our solution helps operational teams in the field to manage and monitor waste activity more easily. It also helps the design, management and monitoring teams to have a much more accurate overall view of the environmental performance of the waste division, with key figures and recommendations for implementing a continuous improvement process.
Anne Visier: To move towards reuse, you have to ask yourself the question: do I need to buy a resource? And if so, can I find it second-hand instead of buying a new one? So before buying a new resource, we must have the reflex to think about its real need and its impact, and only buy new as a last resort. This is a real change in behavior that R.Use wants to support.
What development prospects do you see for your respective solutions?
Anne Visier: At present, the R.Use application only allows people to be put in contact with each other. We are considering several development possibilities: facilitating ordering from the application, allowing payment on the application, offering transport services, or measuring the financial and environmental impact of reuse.
As far as distribution is concerned, we are currently deploying the application in the various delegated departments of VINCI Construction France, for the first half of 2022. And we are also working on a rollout to VINCI Construction and other divisions for a launch as soon as possible later this year.
Viviana Contreras: We started marketing our solution in the spring of 2021 and today we have helped several companies reduce their management expenses and increase the recovery of its waste (+150 containers analyzed). We continue to develop our AI models to analyze more and more typologies of industrial waste, with an increasingly fine granulometry and in a multitude of industrial contexts.
2022, for us, is the year of commercial acceleration. We have several deployments underway nationwide and we are also preparing our deployment in other European countries. To do this, we will strengthen our teams by recruiting more technical talent.
Contacts :
Akanthas : Viviana Contreras (viviana.contreras@akanthas.com)
R.Use : Thibault Gelain (thibaut.gelain@vinci-construction.fr) et Anne Visier (anne.visier@vinci-construction.fr)
