SUEZ partners with FDJ as main co-sponsor of top French women’s cycling team FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope

A major player in environmental services for over 160 years, SUEZ has naturally made this choice to promote cycling, women’s sport and excellence by partnering with the team managed by Stephen Delcourt. At the same time, the FDJ group, a team sponsor since 2017, has announced its decision to extend its partnership until 2025. Futuroscope and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, both long-standing team partners, will also continue to lend their support.

With SUEZ alongside FDJ, the team will enjoy the backing of two large French groups as its riders take to the road in the inaugural Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift beginning on 24 July 2022.

The team achieved a key milestone in 2020 by being awarded a UCI Women’s WorldTour licence, allowing it to embrace new goals by competing at the highest worldwide level. FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope will thus be setting its sights on the major cycling races of the coming seasons, with the aim of consolidating its status as the best French team and its ranking among the top three of the UCI Women’s WorldTeams.

Choice of a sustainable sport accessible to everyone

For many, cycling is the first sport learned as a child. In addition, it is the primary means of transport for teenagers and an enjoyable leisure activity for adults that involves less strain and injuries than most other forms of exercise and is therefore highly recommended by medical professionals as well as being a popular way of getting around. It is also environmentally friendly: one-third of cyclists say they choose to ride their bike to help protect the environment and this proportion rises to 44% for women.

SUEZ is active across the entire value chain in the water and waste management sectors, in France and around the world, and thus plays a key role in improving health for the populations served, in protecting their environment and in the regeneration of resources essential to life.

Support for women’s sport

SUEZ and FDJ are committed to ensuring gender balance and equal opportunities for women and men.

Through its “Sport pour Elles” programme launched in 2016, FDJ is a major player in the promotion of women’s sport.

In line with its renewed commitment to inclusion and diversity, SUEZ wishes in turn to assist with the transformation of women’s cycling and support the development of women’s sport.

Closeness and extensive local presence

FDJ and SUEZ are both large French companies present throughout France. FDJ has built the largest network of points of sale in the country. Always close to the people it serves, SUEZ acts every day, across all of France, to support the circular economy.

Year round, the FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope team takes to the road in France, but also elsewhere in Europe, as well as in China and Australia, for example. These are all geographic regions where SUEZ’s teams deliver environmental services to meet the needs of local communities, businesses and individuals.

 

Stéphane Pallez, Chairwoman and Chief Executive Officer of FDJ, said: “FDJ has been a loyal partner of cycling for over 25 years. Just a few weeks before the inaugural race of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, we are delighted to welcome SUEZ as co-sponsor of the women’s team and to announce the extension of our partnership until 2025. FDJ and SUEZ, two large French companies present throughout the country, are thus joining forces to bring French women’s cycling to great heights. Our move is also a strong message in support of women’s sport.”

Stephen Delcourt, Team Manager of FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope, said: “As the competitive stakes are being raised ever higher in women’s cycling and in anticipation of the inaugural Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, the most important cycling race of the year, the support of both SUEZ and FDJ alongside our long-standing partners will be decisive in helping the team reach its full performance potential. Our team’s achievements since its creation in 2006 are a source of great pride. Highly motivated by this strengthened backing, we are moving ever forward in this wonderful sporting and human adventure with huge ambitions.”