Veolia: Water, energy and waste management

Veolia is committed to becoming a benchmark company in the ecological transition. By 2023, with a presence on five continents and nearly 218,000 employees, the Group designs and deploys useful and concrete solutions for water, waste and energy management, contributing to a fundamental change in this situation. Through its three complementary activities, Veolia contributes to the development of resources, the protection of available resources and the renewal of resources.

By 2023, Veolia will provide drinking water to 113 million inhabitants, sanitation to 103 million inhabitants, produce 42 terawatt hours of energy and recycle 63 million tons of waste.

• Water supply to cities

Did you know that in the 18th century you could meet water carriers in Paris, responsible for the capital’s water cycle? It was not until the 19th century that new technologies made it possible to supply water to individual households. Large cities such as Paris, Lyon, Marseille or Toulouse were reviewing their water supply systems.
On December 14, 1853, Napoleon III authorized the creation of the Compagnie Générale des Eaux. It was in Lyon that the first public water service concession was granted. Other French cities would follow suit, such as Nantes, Nice or Paris and its suburbs. Then, from 1880, the company crossed the French border. This was the beginning of its international expansion, first in Venice, then in Constantinople and Porto. Finally, from 1884, it extended its technology to the field of wastewater treatment in Reims.

• Fighting urban insanitation

The nineteenth century saw the rise of the hygiene movement. In order to curb epidemics and improve the unsanitary environment in cities, hygiene gave them another challenge: managing the increasing waste.
Thus, the scavengers were born, wandering the streets collecting garbage. The Soulier brothers created their company in Rouen in 1870. In the same year, François Grandjouan was commissioned by the city of Nantes to "clean the streets of sludge and garbage and turn them into fertilizer." Remember these names: we will find them a hundred years later.

• Making it easier for you to get around the city

Still in the 19th century, public transportation continued to develop: buses gradually gave way to faster and more comfortable trams. This brought the development of mechanical traction, first steam traction, then compressed air traction and electric traction. In 1875, the French tram company began operating its first lines in Le Havre, Nancy, Marseille and Bordeaux.
A few decades later, in 1912, as cars proliferated, Charles Blum created the Compagnie Générale d'Entreprises Automobiles, initially to manage a fleet of public road vehicles. In 1919, it entered the market for household waste collection in Paris.

• Energy savings

Let's wait a few years and go to Aisne. In 1937, the Villiers-Saint-Denis hospital asked the Chauffage Service company to ensure that its facilities were operated and maintained at a guaranteed temperature. This was the first energy performance contract.

• Combining different expertise

Back to water. In 1953, the General Water Company celebrated its centenary. It had a 10,000 km network and provided drinking water to 8 million people in France alone.
Five years later, the company took on almost all NATO maintenance contracts for US military bases in France. The company then expanded its areas of expertise to offer new services, particularly those related to maintenance and energy. These were the premises for what we call today IFM (Integrated Facility Management) services. IFM services allow manufacturers to benefit from a high level of internalized services, from utility management (whether water, electricity, steam or gas) to soft services such as site cleaning or waste management.