A global system to go with the challenges

Sustainable development is at the heart of Veolia Environnement's culture, business and strategy.
The management of sustainable development is directly attached to the Chief Executive Officer. The sustainable development department was created in 2003 and it coordinates environmental and social performance and works with divisions in defining their objectives. It encourages adaptation of our contractual models and our commercial offers to make sustainable development a competitive advantage and a value creation lever.

Latency

Mobilization limited to research worker communities, initiation of debates by NGOs (e.g. nanotechnologies, biotechnologies).

Foresight

Institut Veolia Environnement (IVE)

Created in 2001

Mission
  • to anticipate economic, environmental and social trends and challenges during the next decades, to foster the Group’s long-term vision.
  • to be a platform for exchanges and communication between different players.
Key partners
  • Foresight Committee, composed of six internationally recognised members, that meets twice a year to guide and validate projects,
  • network of academic experts with which the IVE carries out foresight studies in the disciplines represented.
Areas of Research

Economic aspects of the environment,relations between health / environment, climate change and lifestyles, the challenges of urban growth, society and the environment.

Tools
  • foresight studies program to consider areas of interest in greater detail and to broaden the experts network.
  • international conferences and seminars so that work can be done in the context of a permanent communication with the academic environment and civil society.
  • initiation of innovative projects (Facts and Sapiens) to record experience and scientific know-how for use in later projects.

2007 activities included new studies on the ecological footprint and on health, pollution of indoor air, and other subjects, widening of the network to make it international, and the 2050 climate conference in Montreal.

Sustainable Development Visiting Committee

This Committee was created in 2006 and its objective is to help Veolia Environnement in making progress with its views and its research on sustainable development.

Emergence

Public awareness is gradually increasing as a result of repeated alerts from NGOs and the scientific community (e.g. biodiversity, human rights).

Spreading a forward looking culture

Risk management group

This department was created in 2004 and its mission is global and coordinated management of all types of risks that could affect the Group:

  • anticipate, analyze and weigh risks, by permanent monitoring (mapping)
  • ensure that identified risks are actually taken into account and at the appropriate level
  • check existing risk control systems
  • inform all stakeholders about global risk management procedure
Research management
Health management

Created in 2001.

Mission
  • to monitor and anticipate new health safety challenges for the protection of employees and public using our services.
  • training of employees on health issues and making the public aware of environmental health
Ethics Committee

The Ethics Committee was created in 2004 and is independent of Veolia Environnement’s hierarchy.

Composition

The three members were chosen for their knowledge of the Group and their career situation, to guarantee independence and the experience necessary for their role.

Mission
  • to present recommendations about fundamental values of the company to the Group’s Executive Committee
  • to ensure that the “Ethics, Commitment and Responsibility Program”is respected, particularly through a whistleblowing system.
  • to perform ethics audits at all the Group’s sites.
Europe services

Veolia Environnement has a permanent office in Brussels, close by the European institutions.

Campus Veolia Environnement

Training center created in 1994 - About twenty training centers (in France and internationally).

Mission
  • to develop the skills of the company’s employees
  • to promote environmental services and to accompany the Group’s growth in partnership with major training and recruitment players.

Maturity

Mobilization of public bodies and companies contributing to the economy, strong representation in the media, priority on agendas (e.g. health, environment, hygiene and climate change).

Guidance

Environmental management system
  • tool for implementing the Group’s policy in the field of the environment and environmental health.Deployed since 2002, and adapted to the requirements of international standards (ISO 14001, Global Reporting Initiative)
  • objectives are to manage and reduce the impact of the Group’s activities on the environment and health, through environmental performance management.
Annual environmental reporting
  • monitoring of about a hundred indicators since 2001 using the environmental information system (EIS), production of action plans
  • methodology principles formally defined in the “measurement and reporting protocol for environmental indicators”
  • Implemented in operations representing 75% of the Group’s turnover
  • environmental audits: 1,200 priority facilities audited since 2001.
Annual social reporting
  • measurement of the Group’s social performance through 160 social indicators deployed in 68 countries.
  • takes account of the specific social nature of each monitored business.
  • network of 600 correspondents in divisions to collect and consolidate data.
Annual client reporting
  • measurement of satisfaction of our individual customers based on changes to 10 synthesized indicators.
  • scope: 42 entities in 19 countries (8 businesses added in 2007), namely 75% of 2007 revenue made with local authorities.
Requested extra-financial rating

An extra-financial rating exercise has been organised on part of our geographic coverage and all of our activities since 2004.

Institutionalization

Existence of national or international standards and regulations (e.g. safety at work, anti-trust law).

Compliance

Committees, inspection and monitoring bodies for internal procedures

Nominations and Compensation Committee provides proposals to the Board of Directors about nominations and renewal of directors’ contracts, payment for social representatives and independence of directors.

Accounts and Audit Committee examines the relevance of accounting methods and gives its opinion on accounts, examines the internal audit program and is informed about internal control.

Strategic Research, Innovation and Sustainable Development Committee, evaluates R&D policies within the Group’s strategy.

Legal management
  • analysis of texts and jurisprudence in terms of delegation of public services, government and private contracts, public - private partnerships, for each division.
  • legal monitoring in several domains, to have a complementary analysis and / or a Group position on a particular subject identified by the Reading Committee, recently created in 2007
  • conformity of the Group’s activities with regulations and the company’s good practice.
Systems: internal control and audits
Internal Control Department
  • formal definition and implementation of internal control processes. This function was created in 2004 within the financial services management, and has been broken down into divisions and operational units.
Internal Audit Department
  • procedures to evaluate risk management, control and corporate governance processes, and to contribute to improving them
  • evaluation of internal control, in application of the requirements of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
  • six-monthly antifraud reporting initiated since 2005, for the attention of internal audit managers and internal control managers.

The management was certified by the French Institute for Audit and Internal Control in 2006 and confirmed in 2007.