OREANDA-NEWS. An Eiffage-led consortium including Egis and GDF SUEZ has been selected to carry out a “sustainable city simulator” for Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan following a tender procedure launched by the French Foreign Trade Ministry and the General Treasury Department (DGT).

This ground-breaking project, named Astainable® (after the city of Astana and the word sustainable) entails:

Assessing Astana's needs for sustainable development in the fields of ecomobility, the provision of a local energy mix, sustainable construction and the urban ecosystem (as regards water, waste and environmental restoration);

Identifying and proposing suitable French technical and technological solutions for a sustainable city;

Producing a 3D demonstration model illustrating all these solutions.

This urban demonstrator, which formed part of a bid for projects in 26 July 2013, was backed by €2 million of French public financing. It is to be delivered to the French Foreign Trade Ministry in early 2015. The Astainable® project is a flagship for the wealth and excellence of France's international offering in the field of sustainable cities, under the Vivapolis trademark.

The project reflects a strong political commitment for the transition of the city of Astana towards a sustainable and attractive urban development model. Astainable® - which will take into account the region's natural characteristics including, notably, its severe climatic constraints - will provide this capital city with a decision aid tool, enabling it to define the possible major orientations for its urban development. The Astana international exhibition in 2017, which will focus mainly on “energies for the future”, will provide a showcase for Astainable®, bringing it to the attention of decision-makers, scientists, local population and the neighbouring countries.

Having seen its population grow by more than 250% in 14 years, Astana is now facing, like many other mega-cities throughout the world, the challenges of rapid urbanisation: growing energy footprint, air pollution, severe traffic congestion, needs for urban services and the demand for quality of life.

France's three leading construction, engineering and energy firms - Eiffage, Egis and GDF SUEZ - have pooled their expertise in sustainable city development and have joined forced with French partners including Poma cable transport company, the Pierre Gautier Architecture et Associes, Enodo specialising in virtual interactive urban model, Alliantis a networked communication strategy consulting firm and Safege, an engineering subsidiary of Suez Environnement.

An outstanding feature of this project is that it involves French business and competitive clusters which play their part in the various aspects of sustainable cities and are seeking to promote their firms on international markets - so providing an incubator comprising 1,500 firms including 1,200 SMEs, working together to implement a joint, methodological, conceptual and technical vision of the sustainable city on a French model.