MEMBER PROFILE Marine Lasne: Sustainability Crusader As a young girl in a small town in Brittany, France, Marine Lasne had some broad, unfocused goals. For example, she wanted to practice a profession that served the public and also served nature, but didn’t know how. At some point in her long and thorough education, she realized that engineers have the potential to change the environment. Her idea of changing the world became increasingly focused on sustainability. “If more emphasis were placed on the early phases of project design,” she says, “we wouldn’t have to spend so much energy to protect the environment and to repair damage done in the construction phase.” Lasne has made extraordinary strides as an individual engineer toward a sustainable world. She developed a singular vision of how the construction world could change, and has made her mark globally. Her current title is sustainability director, VINCI Construction, Soletanche Freyssinet, where she reaches over 19,000 employees with her message. She also has been a major figure in the development of the Geotechnical Carbon Calculator, with DFI, EFFC (European Federation of Foundation Contractors) and other international construction groups. This tool (see the Sept/Oct 2013 issue of this magazine) puts specifics to carbon effects in construction and offers guidance to the engineering profession. Philippe Liausu, deputy managing director, Menard, and past president of the SOFFONS (Syndicat des Entrepreneurs de Sondages, Forages et Fondations Spéciales), worked with Lasne for about six years on sustainability issues and developing the carbon calculator. He thinks the carbon calculator’s existence is “strongly” due to her, partly he suggests, because “she has a great facility to communicate.” Within the company, Lasne shows “strong determin- ation to increase awareness of sustainability issues to all staff.” Another executive describes Marine Lasne’s impact on the mammoth company. Bruno Dupety, executive vice president- COO, VINCI Construction, recounts how Lasne joined the firm as a result of the merger between Soletanche Bachy and Freyssinet in 2009. Dupety had launched the motto “Sustainable Technologies.” In October of that year, Lasne made an impressive presentation at the company’s convention in Paris in which, he says, she “set forth the strategy and tools to attain sustainability, down to the details.” She is “passionate, committed and convincing,” says Dupety. “It wasn’t easy,” but people in the company are now aware of sustainability. For Lasne, she says that presentation was a milestone of her education and preparation—and her realization that changing the way design is done in the first place is one of the keys to solving the problem. Unusual Career Path She is “passionate, committed and convincing ... It wasn’t easy,” but people in the company are now aware of sustainability. Lasne’s career path was unusual. She received her (five year) civil engineering graduate degree from the Institut National de Sciences Appliquées in Lyon, during which she applied to study one year at Concordia University in Canada. There she met students from all over the world, from many cultures, and sought knowledge of those other ways of life. She realized she really enjoyed interacting with people from different countries and learning how to work with others. She also earned a masters in environmental management, a postdoctoral diploma awarded by the Ecole des Mines de Paris. After that lengthy and highly-academic prep- aration, Lasne worked 13 years in the field. Part of her experience was in France, but major portions were at gas and oil pipeline sites in various parts of the world. Sometimes she and other engineers lived in construction camps at the sites and endured some stressful work situations. “We worked for 10 weeks, then went home for 2 weeks to recover, then began again,” she says. However she mentions being able to practice sports there with her coworkers, which helped maintain a “normal” life. Those sports included running, squash and tennis, depending on where she was including Yemen and South Africa. Lasne seems to have flourished at her many arduous overseas assignments. A brief summary of her career shows her growing responsibilities. Lasne was an environmental engineer for AMEC-Spie- Batignolles in France, during which time she wrote her thesis, an environmental impact assessment of the firm’s activities. Next she worked for ANTEA Group, doing geotechnical and natural risk assessments. She particularly liked the ANTEA work on former quarries, many of which had been partially backfilled. The work required a lot of research and investigation as well as interaction with local citizenry, which made a lot of sense to her, as the work contributed to solving some of their problems. Next, she returned to AMEC Spie-Batignolles, to DEEP FOUNDATIONS • MAR/APR 2014 • 49
