Innovation

Veolia is a publicly traded French company that operates all over the world. They are in the business of recycling and reusing materials, as well as upgrading and processing raw materials. They mainly focus on three issues: energy, water, and waste. Veolia believes it is important to make as many people as possible aware of the importance of ecological transformation in order to take action together for our planet. To accomplish this, Veolia has launched a new innovation called 'Pulse of Nature'. This is a platform that collects and presents real-time data on Belgium's water, climate, and other natural resources and maps it out on an interactive national map. This freely accessible data provides an insight into the health of Belgium's nature by mapping regional environmental challenges, giving Belgium's nature a voice. This innovation is potentially scalable if Veolia can expand this platform to other countries.

Pulse of Nature makes it possible for Veolia to continue to work on their three core issues. First, Veolia is committed to redistributing water and making healthy and clean water accessible to all. Using data, they are trying to reduce water consumption by using water more sparingly. They address the SDG 'Clean water and sanitation' by purifying canals and bringing Brussels' sewage to a drinkable level using water and waste treatment plants. Furthermore, they engage in maintaining cooling towers and analyzing and controlling legionella and presumed health risks.

Secondly, Veolia provides new solutions in an ecological way to bring energy to people and extract renewable new energy. They actively participate in distributing energy in buildings and cities. For example, they maintain buildings by improving air quality or offer universities 'smart innovations' that tell them how to use energy better and reduce water consumption. In particular, they are strongly committed to the SDG 'Affordable and clean energy' by continuously working on finding solutions for renewable energy.

Finally, concerning the core issue about waste, Veolia, as one of the few companies, has the in-house technology to fully recycle glass and make new glass at a lower energy cost than producing glass completely new, and they also do the same with plastic. We can place this under the SDG 'Responsible consumption and production'. Veolia also has several partnerships called Public-private partnerships, where they work with cities to collect waste. However, another example of the SDG 'Partnerships for the Goals' is that they are trying to produce studies together with universities. Furthermore, they are working on managing (non-)hazardous waste, removing and recycling electronic waste, and looking for bio-based waste solutions.

Inspiration

"The perception Veolia has is that the world is in the intensive care unit."

The time is ticking to take action! Nonetheless, "Veolia realized that they were on an island." They were the only ones taking matters into their own hands, and only a few companies and societies around them were joining them. The problem was not that the rest of the companies were unwilling to help improve the world, but that they did not know how or even where the cause of the problem was. Veolia decided to share their highly customized services and know-how with their clients through the Pulse of Nature platform to ensure a better future together.

Pulse of Nature continuously collects data on water (quality and level), climate (temperature and CO2 emissions), and other natural resources (waste, soil pollution and natural gas consumption). Based on changes and variations in this data, nature itself compiles a list of ten priority challenges that we must work on together. The list of ten challenges in Belgian nature is regularly updated based on changes in the environmental information. Thanks to this platform, companies now do know where the cause of the problem is and where they can help.

In addition to making this information available, Veolia also advises businesses on how to address the issues. At Veolia, they address economic, social, and environmental challenges as one inseparable whole and for the benefit of as many people as possible by designing and implementing valuable and practical water, waste, and energy management solutions. As a result, it has helped to turn the tide dramatically. Through the paid advice provided by Veolia, the business solution contributes to economic prosperity, which, in turn, fosters a healthy environment and enhances human well-being. So, this innovation represents a net-positive impact.

Overall impact

Until now, 91 percent of Belgians believe that the climate is changing. 76 percent believe that climate change is caused by human activity. Veolia wants to respond to people who are concerned about the environment, but they are not informed by the correct facts, nor do they know where the problem is. Thanks to Pulse of Nature, nature gets a voice. For the first time, nature can communicate with us and encourage local businesses and governments to help it, thanks to Veolia's solutions. With Pulse of Nature, we can quickly and easily observe where nature needs support. Thus, everyone becomes aware of what is happening in their immediate environment.

Veolia, for example, could predict when corona peaks would rise or fall by looking at the number of viruses in sewage or wastewater. Other short-term effects include improved air quality in playgrounds, greener forests, etc.

Our long-term efforts can help accelerate ecological transformation. "By putting the environment at the center of our changes and working with communities, industries, and civil society organizations, we can positively impact the future."

Business benefit

Veolia's business model stands for selling sustainable energy and water, primarily to businesses and institutions, and recycling waste. Apart from selling energy and water and collecting waste, they also offer maintenance work to their clients and try to find solutions for companies to manage their energy, water, and waste to become more sustainable, or even become CO2 neutral. In our opinion, Veolia contributes to a better environment while they keep on increasing their economic prosperity. We believe that Veolia not only enhances environmental well-being but also continues to boost their economic prosperity. Regardless of the economic goals, Veolia also strives for equality, not only based on gender but also based on age, race, … in their opinion "equality should be a standard value in an international business."

Veolia has to make and keep its shareholders satisfied as a stock trading company. The capital these shareholders (investors and banks) invest must be put to good use. Therefore, they must work together with the shareholders to see how their money can be used in the best way to generate a profit for them as well because "in a public company, the shareholder is king." But it is not that simple, Veolia does not only have economic goals, they also need social and environmental goals to make the world a better place little by little.

We are currently in the digital revolution, and that's why Veolia, as a modern company, wants to proceed with data and artificial intelligence to make predictions that could be crucial, for example, to predict when energy peaks can arise because of worldly changes. This predictive model can also play an essential role in the maintenance of buildings, for example, when they can make maintenance predictions when a certain component wears off, or what that component's quality is. This shows that Veolia's business model is scalable. It can be deployed on a larger scale, in other places or by other companies, to provide efficient operations.

Social and environmental benefit

The innovation, 'Pulse of Nature', brings many social and environmental benefits. Here, we show examples of why we can conclude that Veolia, as a company, ensures a net-positive impact, in which they contribute not only to economic prosperity, but also to a healthy environment and human well-being. First, it will continuously improve air quality in playgrounds and promote the emergence of greener forests. Furthermore, it will relieve society from the pressure of acid rain's impact on air quality. Moreover, the population can also go for walks or spend time outdoors more confidently, which positively impacts the social aspect. "That is more in the 'Pulse of Nature', where you may also be able to identify green zones outside the red zones where you will still have an impact of 'this is still a good place to live', which will, of course, also have an impact on coexistence." Through this innovation, Veolia monitors ten vital bodily actions of nature, such as measuring water and air quality. "With COVID-19, for example, we have been able to cleverly demonstrate when spikes in COVID-19 cases decrease or increase based on the number of viruses that we can still detect in sewage and wastewater." This is an example of why it can be said that Pulse of Nature is a radical innovation. In fact, it has made life better socially. The innovation also helped detect the number of viruses in sewage or wastewater to predict the evolution of spikes during the COVID-19 pandemic. In short, 'Pulse of Nature' is used to demonstrate whether Veolia is doing correctly, to see if there are indeed improvements. "Or does it need to get worse before we react to it or before we give the right attention?"

In general, the company ensures a positive impact in all of its areas (water, waste, and energy), both on the societal and environmental fronts. For example, it ensures universal access to clean water, the availability of water, as it is a fundamental need in the social community. Veolia works very hard on that, to provide electricity and water, but also to ensure that there is as little illegal dumping as possible.

Interview

Anice Zénasni, Chief Business Applications & Information Officer Europe