GA Smart Building develops innovative, low-carbon properties

Property development underpins GA Smart Building’s expertise

As a low-carbon property developer and builder, GA Smart Building designs and delivers turnkey property projects for investors, occupiers and local authorities.

Its integrated approach provides each client with a bespoke property solution that delivers lasting performance, combining technological innovation with a commitment to low-carbon development and high architectural standards.

This approach reflects a firm conviction: an asset’s value now depends as much on its environmental performance as on its financial performance. By embedding sustainability into the design process, GA Smart Building creates resilient buildings that remain attractive over time, with non-financial performance supporting long-term asset value.

Every property project developed by GA Smart Building reflects the Group’s ambitions:

• Create places to live and work that meet evolving needs and lifestyles.
• Design efficient, flexible buildings that can adapt over time.
• Enhance occupant wellbeing through attractive, comfortable spaces designed for sustainability.

GA Smart Building develops property across all markets

The Group’s property development expertise covers:

• Commercial property, including offices, industrial facilities, light industrial premises and logistics facilities.
• Residential property, notably through Rooj by GA, the first brand dedicated to low-carbon homes built off-site.
• Managed residences, including student accommodation, coliving and senior living.
• Hotels.
• Healthcare.

GA Smart Building works on both developed and undeveloped land, delivering new-build, refurbishment or conversion projects according to its clients’ needs.

This breadth of expertise enables the Group to develop projects suited to each location, using innovation to improve sustainability and meet users’ needs.

GA Smart Building tailors development structures to each project

GA Smart Building applies its expertise across the full range of French property development structures:

• CPI (Contrat de Promotion Immobilière): property development agreements.
• VEFA (Vente en l’État Futur d’Achèvement): forward sales of properties under construction.
• BEFA (Bail en l’État Futur d’Achèvement): pre-let agreements for properties to be built.
• Joint development.

This flexibility supports balanced, lasting partnerships with investors and end users, tailored to the nature and complexity of each project.

Through its integrated model, the Group maintains technical and financial control from design to handover, overseeing construction or renovation and, where required, building operation.

GA Smart Building builds strong partnerships with investors

Drawing on its experience, GA Smart Building works with a network of leading investment partners who share its ambition to create lasting value through projects that deliver positive environmental and social impact.

Whether developing a strategic asset, regenerating an existing site or supporting the transformation of a local area, GA builds partnerships grounded in trust, with a shared focus on performance and innovation.

Architecture shapes GA Smart Building’s property developments

We work with leading architects

Architecture is at the heart of our approach. Each property development begins with close collaboration between the client, architects and engineers to create buildings that make a lasting contribution to their surroundings.

We work alongside renowned practices, including Baumschlager Eberle Architekten for Cité Universelle in Paris; Tezuka Architects and Studio Montazami for Niwa in Toulouse; François Leclercq, Leclercq Associés, for Luminem and Irrigo in Bobigny, and 1pulsion in Toulouse; Reichen & Robert for Gymnote in Cergy-Pontoise; Patriarche for Stellantis grEEn-campus in Poissy; patrick charoin + marina donda architectes for B Park in Balma; and Chartier Dalix for Sogaris’ Les Ardoines urban logistics hub in Vitry. Together, we create distinctive places to live and work that offer comfortable spaces and exemplary environmental performance.

Careful consideration of building volumes, natural light, materials and the urban setting gives each project a unique identity. Architectural choices, from bio-based materials and reused components to construction systems, reflect a shared commitment to creating sustainable, desirable properties that respond to today’s climate and societal challenges.

Niwa in Toulouse embodies this ambition. It is both our headquarters and a statement of our approach. Located on the Piste des Géants, where innovation and bold thinking are part of the area’s history, it stands as a distinctive architectural landmark.

Working with Studio Montazami and Tezuka Architects, we set out to demonstrate that off-site construction can deliver architecture of real distinction. Niwa brings together expertise from manufacturing, architecture and engineering. It shows how off-site construction can achieve architectural quality and precision while enhancing sustainability.

Niwa reflects GA Smart Building’s conviction that, together, we can build better for people and the climate.

We draw on the expertise of Sight architecture et design

Our longstanding partner, Sight architecture et design, supports architects and our design teams from the earliest stages of a project, applying a human-centred approach known as User-Centered Design.

By integrating design and engineering around users’ needs, Sight connects architectural design with the Group’s manufacturing expertise.

Our low-carbon strategy delivers responsible properties with lasting performance

GA Smart Building implements an ambitious low-carbon strategy.

All our developments use off-site construction. This innovative manufacturing approach reduces CO₂ emissions by 30% compared with a conventional construction site, according to an Artelia study of freight transport flows during the construction of the 1pulsion building in Toulouse for Espaces Ferroviaires. It also improves control over energy use and enables 98.5% of waste to be recovered through material recycling or energy recovery.

Stellantis grEEn-campus in Poissy achieves the E3C2 level under France’s E+C− framework. Delivered in 2024, Niwa already meets the 2050 requirements of France’s tertiary building energy regulations, while Synapses in Courbevoie targets the 2028 threshold of the RE2020 environmental regulations.

The Group extends its low-carbon strategy to its choice of materials and building systems. Low-carbon cement and concrete formulations reduce the carbon footprint of reinforced and prestressed products by 30–35%. GA also uses bio-based materials and low-carbon equipment. Leaf air handling modules deliver carbon savings of more than 20% compared with centralised HVAC systems, while the Smart Activ System achieves savings of more than 30%.

GA Smart Building also makes reuse a cornerstone of its low-carbon strategy. Since launching this approach in 2020, the Group has used 30,000 m² of raised access flooring, 25,000 m² of paint, 500 m² of carpet and more than 500 items of reused equipment. Our Niwa headquarters served as a pilot project for the Circolab reuse label and was one of 58 exemplary construction projects under the LifeWaste2Build circular economy initiative led by Toulouse Métropole.

Beyond reducing carbon emissions, GA Smart Building aims to align all its developments, whether new-build or renovation, with the six environmental objectives of the EU Taxonomy. Today, 84% of the revenue generated by the Group’s projects is already aligned with the EU Taxonomy’s sustainability criteria. Climate change adaptation receives particular attention through systematic climate risk assessments and the implementation of measures to improve resilience.

This commitment includes signing the real estate sector’s climate change adaptation charter and earning the EcoVadis Platinum medal. As EcoVadis’ highest distinction, the medal places us among the top 1% of companies assessed worldwide for their CSR and sustainability practices. We also actively contribute to the “Nos villes à 50°C” collective, which explores how cities can become more resilient to extreme heat.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has validated our climate pathway at its highest level of ambition, aligned with limiting warming to 1.5°C. Our targets for 2030 are to:

• Reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 55% in absolute terms.
• Reduce Scope 3 emissions by 55% in physical intensity, measured in kgCO₂e per square metre delivered.

Since 2019, GA has already reduced its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 18% and its Scope 3 emissions by 29%, demonstrating how its commitments translate into concrete action.

Choosing GA Smart Building as a property developer means working with a partner whose comprehensive low-carbon model brings innovative materials and extensive reuse into off-site construction. Its SBTi-validated climate pathway supports an ambitious approach to EU Taxonomy alignment, with climate change adaptation playing a key role in building resilience.