The CSTB creates the Economy and Resources Department, entrusted to Sylvain Laurenceau

The Economy and Resources operational department

The construction sector must respond to new challenges: acceleration of dynamics to limit environmental impacts and develop the circular economy, securing supplies, need to create local value...

The CSTB is creating an entity dedicated to these challenges: the Economy and Resources department. Based on a systemic approach, this new department focuses its activity on two fundamentals that underlie the various changes underway in the construction sector: the availability of resources to fuel activity, and the existence of sustainable economic models. .

It bases its expertise on the analysis and support of constructive solutions linked to the circular economy, the analysis of economic models, park dynamics and forecasting, as well as the development of methods and tools to support players in taking these new practices into account.

Relying on a dominant Research and Expertise, the Economy and Resources department includes a team of nearly 30 researchers, engineers and economists. In synergy with most of the other CSTB departments, they will work on 3 levels:

• products: integration of recycled materials, reuse, waste treatment, support for innovation, characterization of eco-design, etc.
• buildings: optimization of the overall cost analysis, analysis of externalities, anticipation of the different uses throughout the life of the structure, design of buildings in material banks, tools for analyzing circularity, etc.
• Territories: analysis of material flows, analysis of the structuring of sectors, including emerging sectors, park dynamics, prospective analysis, support for public policies, optimization of the balance between local and global tensions and distribution of value, etc.

Organized in this way, the Economy and Resources department intends to support all players, companies and contracting authorities, industrialists and institutions, but also the public authorities, to enable them to best respond to the challenges of preserving resources and circular, sustainable and virtuous economy.

A new direction led by Sylvain Laurenceau

An economist engineer, Sylvain Laurenceau is a graduate of the École Polytechnique and the London School of Economics.

He began his career in London in 2007, where he worked on local development, before joining CSTB in 2009. Within the Economics and Human Sciences department, he was in charge of analyzing and evaluating various public support schemes for the building sector.

In 2015, he joined the Energy-Environment department. In 2018, he coordinated the development of a CSTB roadmap around the circular economy, then set up a dedicated team in 2020, still within the Energy-Environment department.

On the strength of this background and this expertise, he is now appointed Economics and Resources Operational Director:

“The creation of the Economy and Resources department is part of a context of profound changes with which the entire sector is confronted. The work that we will carry out, both in terms of research, technical expertise and support for innovation, will aim to meet the new needs thus induced. Carried out in a cross-functional approach, they will also contribute to irrigating a large part of CSTB's activities, serving the construction sector. » Sylvain Laurenceau – Economics and Resources Operational Director - CSTB