Business Overview 2009 (pdf - 6.8MB) - Veolia Water

Our achievements / Water resource management and protection
clients’ desalination processes, both in terms of their
impact on the environment and their consumption
of chemicals and energy. VWS, for example, is developing
new solutions in this area and in 2009 it purchased the
rights to commercialize a Zero Discharge Desalination
process that minimizes concentrate discharge into
the natural environment. Research into ways of further
reducing our plants’ energy consumption also continues;
we have already reduced the electricity consumption
of membrane desalination alone to 25% of what it was
in 1970.
Water withdrawals from underground aquifers often
largely exceed natural replenishment capacities. In areas
where water is scarce, recharging aquifers with treated
water (surface water, stormwater, wastewater, etc.)
therefore represents an alternative solution to reduce the
gap between the demand and the available resources.
Veolia Water already uses this technique successfully
in more than 30 locations, including Adelaide, Berlin and
Barcelona, and we continue to advocate it in technical
recommendations compiled in 2009.
Protecting biodiversity
By their very nature, our activities have an impact on
ecosystems. That is why protecting biodiversity and
preserving our natural environment are major concerns for
our company.
From the installation of systems that monitor aquatic
environments to the development of green areas and
sensitivity analyses, we provide our clients with a
commitment to assessing and, if required, minimizing
the environmental impacts of water and wastewater
services. For example, when Sade’s well-drilling
department constructs a system to produce water,
it always takes into account all environmental parameters
in the catchment basin, analyzes the nearby and
immediate environment (subsoil vulnerability, protection
area required, etc.) and then takes responsibility for
rehabilitating the existing environment. In 2009, the
Regional Council of Reunion Island called on our expertise
in this field for a Water Search Program designed to assess
the island’s raw and drinking water resources.
In our management contracts, the differentiated
management of green areas, which is more respectful
of ecosystems, is included in our service for the sustainable
management of natural habitats. We work with local
associations to implement this form of management
on small areas like the catchment basins of Nevers and
Lyons in France, Milwaukee in the United States
or Braunschweig in Germany. The aim is to restore
the habitats in order to reap greater benefit from
the ecosystem services they render as well as to raise
stakeholder awareness of the need to protect biodiversity
and the environment. For example, Veolia Water and the
French Golf Federation are launching a partnership
designed to promote biodiversity by developing alternative
maintenance methods and the reuse of treated
wastewater for irrigation.
Protecting diversity is also a key concern in the
management of the quality of coastal waters. For several
years now, we have been helping public authorities
anticipate regulations, particularly in Europe (Bathing
Water Directive), and set up their own systems to monitor
pollution sources and bathing water quality in both dry
and wet weather. These efforts proved fruitful when
the urban community of Dieppe-Maritime and the towns
of Pornic and Perros-Guirec became the first public
authorities in France to obtain “bathing water
certification.” This facet of our know-how is valued
by tourist resorts the world over as they become
increasingly aware of how detrimental a decline in the
quality of their coastal waters could be to their image.
34 Veolia Water 2009