Last week, MarcoPolis had the opportunity to participate in the world’s leading real estate event, MIPIM, the unmissable meeting of real estate professionals worldwide, which took place from March 15 to March 18 in Cannes, France.

Established in 1990, MIPIM is a real estate event dedicated to assembling the most influential players from all sectors of the international real estate scene, including investors, developers, advisers, brokers, and other professionals in the industry. The exhibition brings the entire value chain together and gives unrivalled access to the greatest number of development projects and sources of capital worldwide. The 2022 event saw the participation of 3,800 exhibiting companies from 100 different countries.

While many personalities have spoken throughout the week, it was former French President François Hollande who gave the opening speech, recalling the lack of nearly a million housing units in France, while production does not follow due to various constraints.

Regarding investments, Mr. Hollande proposed that France must continue to build houses for the population but must also fight against the artificialization of the soil by giving buildings a new use. Consideration should be given to office towers becoming housing, for example. The modularity of spaces is a new challenge. This axis also encourages the reduction of mobility, which is costly from an energy point of view and emits carbon.

The former President also talked about the importance of softening the urban aspect, saying that if the attractiveness of metropolises remains a major economic issue, they have to make an effort to be more livable while becoming denser. We must integrate natural spaces, reduce and facilitate travel, increase local services. If the politicians must think of the city as a global and coherent project, they must not consider it as a unit, but indeed as a multitude of districts in which the inhabitants will find services, work, and leisure. A prime example of a development achieving these goals is Ajdan Waterfront by Al-Khobar based lifestyle mixed-use developer Ajdan, whose CEO Mohammed Al Otaibi took the opportunity to showcase the Saudi real estate market and the current status of its development in light of Saudi Vision 2030.

With respect to construction methods, Mr. Hollande insisted on the fact that concrete consumes a great deal of energy and that construction habits must be changed, using more virtuous materials in constructions.

Finally, he definitively addressed the current geopolitical context which is forcing the West to change its strategic model much more quickly. The challenges ahead, accelerated by the war in Ukraine, are of a climate and energy nature. The construction market is the second largest producer of CO2 in the world, and it is imperative to increase the decarbonization of economies by rethinking investments, locations, and construction methods. However, he regrets that these major themes are not currently debated in the public space, construction being conspicuously absent from France’s upcoming presidential election.

This year’s event was also an opportunity to honor the most outstanding and accomplished real estate projects around the world in categories including Best Futura Mega Project awarded to Hangzhou Alibaba DAMO Academy Nanhu Industry Park Project (Hangzhou, China), Best Mixed-Use Development awarded to Frederiksberg Allé 41 (Copenhagen, Denmark), Best Office and Business Development awarded to BNP Paribas Fortis HQ at Montagne du Parc (Brussels, Belgium), Best Residential Development awarded to Æbeløen (Aarhus, Denmark), and Best Urban Project awarded to Borough Yards (London, United Kingdom).

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