Improving Energy Efficiency in New Builds and Renovations with Explorers Project

At Radiall, encouraging our employees’ growth is a part of the empowerment initiatives of our purpose. Part of growing your professional skills includes having the opportunity to explore new ideas and be creative in the work you do. That’s why our teams launched the Explorers program in 2022, an intrapreneurship program in our French facilities that allowed 10 employees to come up with ideas and projects about six innovation topics.

Radiall Employee Accelerates Project in Intrapreneurship Program

In January, we introduced this program and shared two of the projects related to talent development and environmental protection. Now, we’re sharing the next project aimed at increasing building energy efficiency. Stay tuned throughout the rest of the year to learn about the rest of the ideas, focused on developing employee leadership skills, including visually impaired people in using connected devices and facilitating connections between the industry and future talents.

Increasing Building Efficiency

Wilfried Moutault, a design engineer at Radiall Château-Renault, came up with a proposal to integrate electrical networks into bio-based construction modules for new buildings. With the support of his sponsor Julien Legrand and mentor Bastien Huon, Wilfried created the Mob&Co project.

After some research and pivots, the project is now more about interconnection solutions. “I wanted to create a project with a purpose – a project that would combine environmental protection, sustainable building and a possible link to Radiall expertise,” said Wilfried. “After some research and pivots, the project is now more about interconnection solutions for off-site construction modules. This is a market segment that is booming in France and Europe and that brings key solutions to lower the carbon impact of buildings.”

When developing his idea, Wilfried identified that many buildings have low insulation, which leads to an increase in energy costs. Complying with new and upcoming regulations can be costly. Wilfried knew that we need to improve energy performance of new buildings or those that are undergoing renovations so we can create more sustainable buildings, helping to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions. 

In February 2023, Mob&Co project entered the acceleration phase. With this phase, Jabran Kalai joined the project team and Wilfried and Jabran are working with a French startup acceleration organization, Le VIllage by CA Paris, to further understand the needs of modular and off-site building manufacturers, design a valuable solution and validate its business model, while learning entrepreneurial skills to support their project.

“This project is important for us because we want to (re)connect our society to the environment,” said Wilfried. “We both want to be actors in preserving our environment. Then what is better than bringing innovation, our creativity and know-how to one of the human activities (construction) that contributes most to GES emissions? We have two objectives with this project: open up to new markets and diversify our business model. Personally, we would like to learn and grow our skills to be able to accomplish this goal.”

At Radiall, we’re proud of our employees’ skills and ideas throughout the company. If you are looking for a new career opportunity where you can challenge yourself and work on products that impact the world, check out our current job openings.