Climate and Resilience

The Climate and Resilience Law, published in the Official Journal on 24 August 2021, implements some of the Citizens’ Convention on Climate proposals. It covers consumption, production, transport, housing, food and judicial protection of the environment. Two provisions directly affect businesses and local territories. Article 35 requires every public contract to include an award criterion incorporating the offer’s environmental characteristics and environmental clauses in the conditions of performance. These obligations take effect on a date set by decree and no later than 22 August 2026; defence and security contracts are excluded, and the SPASER provisions took effect earlier. For an SME bidding for public contracts, the carbon footprint becomes part of the score rather than a brochure claim. The law also regulates environmental claims, particularly use of the expression carbon neutral, and requires listed coastal municipalities to map exposure to shoreline retreat over 30 and 100 years, the only framework in which relocation is organised under French law.