Bordeaux Métropole taps ServiceNow, Aguaro in smart city programme

With COP28 firmly on countries’ agendas and sustainability continuing to be one an imperative, Bordeaux Métropole – which manages the technology for “the world’s largest urban region” listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site – has revealed a strategy to help deliver on the French city’s mission and values with “intelligent solutions” to support the goal of positive energy and low carbon by 2050. 

Bordeaux Métropole serves a population of 850,000 across the city and 28 municipalities. The municipality is leading a plan for digital transformation to support citizens with more than 1,600 digital services in areas such as housing and transport. The deployment is said to be set against a backdrop of growing citizen demands, rapid innovation and the blurring lines between the expectations of public and private sector.

As part of its roll-out, Bordeaux Métropole said it wanted to avoid getting caught in the race to ensure it always has the latest tech when what really matters, stressing it was the right tech solution that can form the foundation for the evolution of its strategy into the future.

Bordeaux Métropole implemented ServiceNow (ITSM) in 2016 to establish what it intended to be a new standardised regional information system including more than 1,600 consolidated digital services. The implementation also included a call centre built to optimise agents’ digital activities and provide immediate year-round responses to users’ IT requests.

In September 2021, Bordeaux Métropole launched the Orientations Numériques Partagées (Shared Digital Orientations) strategy which details a commitment to responsible digital development. It sets out to place citizens at the heart of smart city digital services accessible to all, and bring about an efficient and sustainable digital transformation of public services.

In the latest part of the development, Bordeaux Métropole has now chosen to work with ServiceNow partner, Aguaro and its My IT Footprint app that enhances the ServiceNow platform by placing carbon footprint issues at the centre of the day-to-day management of digital services. 

“We’ve established the principle that digital should be chosen, not imposed,” said Bordeaux Métropole CEO Jean-Noël Olivier. “It’s all about striking the right balance between value-added digital services and their environmental, social and ethical impact.

“Since the outset of our digital transformation in 2016, ServiceNow’s platform has been supporting both digital services management and importantly, with the extended partnership with Aguaro, enabling the monitoring of our carbon footprint from one year to the next.”

With the new technology, it is now possible to assess the environmental impact of all equipment used in the communes as well as other activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions. Metrics can cover key areas such as maintenance services or distances travelled transporting equipment between sites.  

Bordeaux Métropole has also set up a ServiceNow service portal to engage users in the principles of carbon reduction. Taking the initiative further still, Bordeaux Métropole now offers other digital responsibility initiatives, such as Digital Clean-up Days in partnership with the recycling and reconditioning company EcoMicro.

Another by-product of the deployment is that Bordeaux Métropole has a set of intelligent insights into its operations that can enable it go gain insights into how to reduce further environmental impacts. Choosing to enter into a strategic business and technology partnership with ServiceNow and partner Aguaro means Bordeaux Métropole can foster community awareness and change, particularly in support of the environment.

“One benefit for Bordeaux Métropole is that it can build on the investments already made in the ServiceNow platform by automating many of the processes associated with its services,” added Aguaro co-founder Matthieu Poulard.

“Staff have access to data with a high degree of granularity as the application is linked directly to the source data. This is essential for identifying savings opportunities and making the results more reliable.”