More than 11,000 partners work with us every day. You share your resources, talents and know-how and contribute to the success of our projects and worksites.
Why is your role so important? Because the economic and industrial performance of the rail sector is the fruit of your efforts combined with those of our teams. Whether large or small company, your expertise, the quality of your work, your capacity for innovation, your high standards of safety and your ethics are all essential assets in meeting the challenges of regenerating and modernising the rail network throughout France.
SNCF Réseau is a company with strong roots in the national economy, particularly through its close links with its suppliers and partners. In 2024, we purchased €6.3bn worth of services. 97% of our suppliers are companies located in France, all over the country.
A large proportion of our purchases involve works, but also intellectual services and services, as well as the supply of equipment and components: rails, sleepers, ballast, catenary masts, signalling systems, etc.
We take care to involve suppliers from the outset, when defining our needs and our purchasing strategies, by taking into account their feedback on contracts, their expertise, their proposals for innovation and their ideas for reducing costs.
Economic and operational performance, responsible and sustainable purchasing, decarbonisation, innovation and process simplification are the pillars of SNCF Réseau's purchasing strategy.
This is a priority for our purchasing policy. On every site or project, we rely on our suppliers and their service providers to ensure the quality of the products, solutions and services we buy. The system for qualifying our partners means we can be sure of the level of quality and safety management in place. It's a guarantee, but we go further by constantly monitoring our suppliers and their subcontractors.
We take our role in the local economy and regional vitality very seriously. The proof is as follows: 97% of our purchases are made from French companies, including 18% from very small, small and medium size businesses (VSBs and SMBs). Our ambition is to develop a nationwide network of very small business- and small and medium size business-suppliers. Every year, we go out to meet them by organising regional supplier meetings to promote contract opportunities and raise awareness of our needs.
In 2024, we made almost €36m of responsible purchases: €25m linked to the integration clause in our contracts and almost €11m in direct solidarity purchases from social and solidarity economy companies (disability sector, assisted companies, integration workshops, etc.).
We have also launched a strategy to decarbonise our purchases, with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions from our activities. Our method involves trials and dialogue with our suppliers, who are strongly committed to the ecological transition.
We ask our suppliers to adhere to our Social and Environmental Responsibility commitments and to provide proof of a CSR assessment carried out by an independent third party (like EcoVadis, Fédération nationale des travaux publics, etc.).
In 2024, 75% of our purchases were made from suppliers CSR assessed by an independent third party.
We also have an action plan to support our suppliers in their efforts to improve, in particular by commissioning social audits from an external firm if we consider that their CSR assessments are too low.
