For decades, the economic model of urban development has been based on the transfer of building rights: land charges. These are traded in the financial summary table for a project: the operating balance sheet. Structurally, therefore, profitability is based on soil degradation. Through this prism, land conservation is nothing more than an additional cost: recycling brownfield sites, restructuring old buildings, raising buildings, transforming their use, only represents additional complexity and construction costs, and the positive effect on preserved land and the ecological debt avoided by this conservation is not reflected financially. To remedy this, the Institute has chosen to develop a new model for assessing land transition operations, which takes into account the necessary long-term restoration of degraded ecosystems. This additional cost is linked to two new sources of revenue, relating to the artificialisation avoided by land use restraint measures and the artificialisation reduced by renaturation measures.

This tool aims to produce a balance sheet model that can be used directly by developers, planners and landlords, and recognised by public authorities for their financing tools (national funds, clearing banks, etc.).