2024-07-22 09:30:04
Founded 25 years ago, the Mecanic Vallée business cluster brings together more than 160 mechanical engineering companies spread across three industrial territories in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie regions. Boosted by the desire to decarbonize the aeronautics sector and national objectives for industry, the players in this local and rural ecosystem are increasingly committed to environmental issues.
According to Damien Poyard, president of Mecanic Vallée, decarbonization is the most discussed topic during the cluster’s monthly meetings, along with recruitment issues: « Nearly 30% of Mecanic Vallée manufacturers have already committed to carrying out a carbon footprint assessment ».
The role of the Mecanic Valley
The Mechanic Valley represents more than 12,000 jobs, spread across three sectors of mechanical activity: aeronautics, automotive equipment and the machine tool sector.
As a Local Productive System (SPL) certified by the French administration¹, the Mecanic Vallée aims to promote the local mechanical industry and ensure the competitiveness of companies in the areas concerned.
It also provides a place for discussion and entertainment and promotes cooperation between mechanical industry players through the pooling of resources, the development of synergies, new skills and market research.
La Mecanic Vallée supports manufacturers in the South West in their decarbonization
A real gateway for local businesses that want to engage in decarbonization, Mecanic Vallée connects public and private stakeholders around these issues.
La Mecanic Vallée is also involved in calls for projects for the France 2030 plan, helping companies put together financing applications and with the engineering side.
Concretely, the cluster supports these local players on multiple decarbonization themes, such as the installation of hydrogen stations allowing future hydrogen-powered heavy goods vehicles to circulate or the installation of photovoltaic canopies.
Local players in the aeronautics sector are also very active on decarbonization issues. For example, the aerostructures and metal parts specialist Figeac Aéro plans to soon equip itself with a SaaS solution to “monitor the carbon of all its factories”.
Ratier Figeac, another big name in the Mecanic Vallée and the world’s leading manufacturer of propellers for civil and military transport aircraft, is working on the recovery of waste, particularly steel and aluminium, but also on the energy performance of its buildings (insulation, roofs, boilers, etc.).
Decarbonization is underway in the mechanical industry, at all levels
Mecanic Vallée also operates at the territorial level. At the 2023 edition of the Grand Sud industry partners fair (SIANE), Minoï Marchand, industrial territory mission manager for Mecanic Vallée, declared: “Territorial industrial ecology is becoming more democratic. We can integrate the theme of decarbonization and the networking of all the decarbonization stakeholders within a community, in order to exchange good processes, good methods and good tools.”
Finally, at the national level, things are also changing and Mecanic Vallée is not the only player in the sector committed to the decarbonization of the mechanical industry. At the Global Industrie 2024 trade show, Mecallians, the common banner of the French mechanical industry², created in 2023, published a decarbonization guide aimed at all manufacturing industries.
Based on a five-step approach, it offers pragmatic and operational advice, in the form of fact sheets intended to be enhanced over time.
¹ Labeled in 1999 by DATAR, an organization since replaced by ANCT (National Agency for Territorial Cohesion)
² Mecallians brings together the FIM (Federation of Mechanical Industries), the CETIM and the UNM (Union for the Standardization of Mechanics)
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