Paris is famous across the world for its pavement cafés. More than 10,000 restaurants, cafés, bars and clubs across the city enjoy outside seating areas. With the recent laws banning smoking indoors, many places are now using their pavement seating all year long.

However, these installations come with some problems:

• energy consumption

In the winter, many cafés and restaurants provide heating in the outside seating areas in the form of radiators powered by electricity or natural gas. These are rarely energy efficient and gas heaters produce notoriously high levels of carbon emissions As regulation dictates that any smoking area must be open for ventilation, most of the energy is wasted, which is also environmentally unacceptable.

• noise & other nuisances

Outside seating areas, while enjoyable for customers, can be a source of nuisance for neighbours, leading to tensions between local businesses and inhabitants in some neighborhoods. Noise and odours from smoke or food are among the most commonly cited nuisances.

Paris is looking for innovative and creative solutions to these problems:

• new ways to keep customers warm with more energy efficiency, or closer to environmental neutrality. Solutions may include new equipment, energy recycling, radiating surfaces or other alternatives.
• new materials or equipment that helps to reduce nuisances such as smoke, noise and odours.

As Paris has developed an extensive policy towards experimentation of innovative solutions, we are open to receiving and piloting any kind of proposal.