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PartnersNetcarbon, INRAE, IRSTV, Bordeaux Métropole, CNES

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KeywordsUrban development, carbon neutrality, ZAN, cooling, national targets

Target 2050: building tomorrow's world today

Published on 09/12/2025
What if every development project became part of the French national climate plan? With Target 2050, Netcarbon helps local authorities design projects that are aligned with France's 2050 objectives: carbon neutrality, zero net artificialization and heat resilience. The key? Simulating projects and assigning them a clear and realistic climate performance rating. Definitely worth checking out.
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Simulation of the drop in temperatures after the renaturation of Place Marguerite de Navarre in Paris.
Simulation of the drop in temperatures after the renaturation of Place Marguerite de Navarre in Paris. © Netcarbon

One ambition: development projects aligned with the three major climate challenges

School playgrounds, residential neighborhoods, public squares, commercial and industrial areas, car parks... all these developments are shaping the world of tomorrow. But how can we ensure their climate effectiveness and their alignment with national climate objectives? This is the challenge taken up by SCO Target 2050, an initiative led by the start-up Netcarbon to support regions in moving towards truly sustainable, measurable and, in fact, concrete development. Today, thanks to satellite data and environmental modelling, their solution is operational and capable of translating development projects into three key environmental indicators, in line with French guidelines:

  1. 🌱 Carbon neutrality: Reduce CO₂ emissions by a factor of 6 and double carbon sinks.
    👉 Based on the Low Carbon Label method, the Netcarbon solution models carbon stocks in three compartments (biomass, soil and litter) and integrates the growth dynamics of planted species.
  2. 🌳 Zero Net Artificialization (ZAN): Reduce artificialization in favor of renaturation.
    👉 Using satellite images, the application calculates the proportion of land that has been artificialized and denaturalized before and after the project.
  3. 🌡️ Temperature mitigation: Design spaces capable of limiting local temperature increases, according to TRACC, the French national reference trajectory for climate adaptation in a context where France is heading towards a +4°C warming.
    👉 The tool integrates the open source IceTool (QGIS) module to model surface temperature according to vegetation, materials and shadows.

An app for renatured cities

The tool's online interface was specifically designed in collaboration with the project's partner users, notably the cities of Bordeaux and Anglet, to ensure a smooth experience and immediately usable results. The process is fully automated based on the site plans provided by the project leaders:

  1. The system carries out an assessment of the current situation and assigns each criterion a rating from A to E.

  2. Users can then "open" their project by positioning and entering the developments they wish to carry out: planting x trees of a certain species in a certain location, applying or changing materials on the ground or on a building, etc.

  3. The application simulates the expected effects of each measure, every 5 years up to 25 years: temperature gain, carbon storage, proportion of soil preserved. In addition to the maps generated, each criterion is assigned a new score, with the aim of improving on the initial assessment.

  4. Several simulations are possible to identify levers for improvement for each criterion: changing a tree species, using a more reflective surface type or simply changing its color, arranging green spaces for more permeable soils, etc., until the optimal solution is found.

Objective A

To assess the effectiveness of a development project, the Netcarbon app assigns each criterion a rating from A to E. To obtain an A, the simulated criteria of the project must achieve the following scores:


•    Carbon neutrality: carbon sinks are more than doubled
•    ZAN: renaturation exceeds artificialisation
•    Temperatures: the site is cooled by more than 20%.

     👁️ Find visuals for each stage on the project page

What's next?

Netcarbon hits the mark with its demonstration and captures the audience's interest. The app is clear, easy to use and is enriched as projects progress. "What is developed with a customer becomes a fully-fledged feature of the service, accessible to all customers," explain Basile Goussard and Adrien Mazeau, founders of Netcarbon. They are now working on automating scenario optimization and taking into account the perceived temperature.

🖱️ Request a demo from Netcarbon

💡3 videos to learn more 

  • September 18, 2025, replay of Netcarbon's presentation, including a demonstration of the app, at the 18th Quarterly Meeting of SCO France on
  • October 9, 2025, interview with Basile Goussart on B SMART TV
  • November 26, 2025, themed video "Vegetation, Cities: the SCO stakeholders tell you all about it"