France – Villefrance Sur Saone
Organisation : Seduco - Credit Agricole
La Galerie Domaine Caladois is a shopping gallery in the ZAC du Garet, in the north-eastern business district of Villefranche-sur-Saône (Rhône, France). It hosts around 30 shops and restaurants alongside a Carrefour hypermarket and a free car park. The shops open Monday to Saturday from 9:30 am to 7:30 pm, while the adjoining hypermarket keeps longer hours, including Sundays. The certified scope covers 2,897 m² and is operated by the property management team of Sudeco (Crédit Agricole group), which runs the gallery's technical systems: gas-fired warm-air curtains at the entrances, rooftop units and air handling units for heating and cooling, and interior, façade and car park lighting, all under a building management system (BMS).
This was the team's first participation in the Championship, and they deliberately entered a building they knew had strong improvement potential. In a single year of intensive work involving every stakeholder, consumption fell by 61.8% against the January 2022–June 2024 reference (474 MWh/year), saving around 293 MWh and 48 tCO₂ over the July 2024–June 2025 monitoring period and reaching the Master level.
The result rests on a close-knit, complementary trio: the shopping centre director, who manages the site day to day and puts actions in place; the regional technical director, in charge of technical, environmental and regulatory follow-up; and the energy manager covering the whole Sudeco portfolio, whose mission is to reduce energy spending. Beyond them, everyone on site took part, including the HVAC maintenance contractors and the security control room, which played a central role throughout.
The main actions implemented to reduce the energy consumption of this building.
The savings were achieved with almost no capital expenditure: the project relied on settings, control, monitoring and team organisation rather than on equipment replacement.
Instrumentation. The only hardware added was a set of indoor and outdoor temperature sensors, installed to monitor comfort conditions in the common areas and to adjust settings to the weather.
Heating and cooling setpoints. Common areas are now held at 17°C in winter and 27°C in summer, with reduced mode at night and outside opening hours.
Rooftop units. Every rooftop unit was identified and mapped together with its associated temperature sensor. Night-time ventilation was shut off and fresh-air dampers were calibrated to 10%.
Air handling schedules. Air handling units now run strictly during opening hours and switch to reduced mode when the building is unoccupied. Zones are started in a staggered sequence rather than all at once, and parameters are regularly adjusted to weather conditions.
Gas-fired air curtains. At the start of winter, the hot-water loop feeding the entrance air curtains was kept on glycol for frost protection only, with the curtains off. A breakdown later forced them back into service; from then on, their operation was secured by a double check combining the time clock and a human verification by the centre director, in liaison with the security control room.
BMS reliability. Regular BMS check rounds revealed discrepancies between local and BMS control: for instance, an airlock lighting circuit shown as off on the BMS was in reality staying on. When the BMS failed in January, the team switched to manual control to preserve the gains.
Lighting. Switch-on and switch-off times are checked weekly on the BMS and aligned with sunrise and sunset. Car park and façade lighting was reduced to the level actually needed, and dimming was reworked, with some luminaires switched off, so that the gallery is lit to the regulatory minimum.
IT equipment. Standby settings were configured on IT equipment.
Night tracking. A night-time survey found many pieces of equipment still running after closing, notably the gas air curtains. Correcting them produced a visible step change, with savings accelerating markedly from November onwards.
Daily monitoring. Gas consumption is read manually every day by the security control room, giving the team near real-time feedback on each action.
A dedicated team. Sobriety referents were appointed and a weekly meeting was set up between the energy manager, the regional technical director and the centre director.
Kick-off and audit. The programme opened with an energy audit and a kick-off meeting bringing together every team concerned (operations, technical staff, HVAC maintenance contractors and security), so that all were engaged from day one.
A weekly action loop. Weekly reviews, with strong commitment from the teams, cover consumption, indoor and outdoor temperatures, and actions in progress or planned. The method is simple and repeatable: the energy manager analyses the data to target the largest savings, the technical team designs the solution, the centre director implements it, and its effect is checked the following week.
Security staff as an energy watch. Beyond the daily gas readings, security agents check lighting during their rounds, use CCTV to verify that switch-off instructions are actually applied, and coordinate with the centre director on air curtain operation.
Communication. An awareness campaign was displayed on the centre's advertising screens for visitors and tenants.
