Environmental performance

The Environmental Management System (EMS) is a tool used to implement the Group's policy in the fields of the environment and health.
It is common to all activities and is structured around three levels of responsibility (Group, division, business units).
It enables the Group to determine, manage and reduce the impact of its activities on environment and health.
An environmental management committee, composed of the environment departments of the Group and its divisions, manages the implementation and organization of the EMS, encourages sharing of information and good practices between divisions, and ensures that objectives and actions taken in 239 different business units remain consistent.

• set up a team of internal auditors with direct control over returned information (implementation of the EMS, conformity with regulations, relevance of the action plan);
• finalized implementation of its environmental information system (EIS) to improve the indicator reporting process and the interpretation of environmental data. This tool will also be strengthened by a specific module for monitoring how environmental audits are performed.

The Group will achieve the last of the twelve commitments that were defined in 2002. Considering the major challenges consisting of climate change,renewable energy, health,and waste recovery, the Group began to define a new generation of indicators with quantified objectives in 2007 following a logic of measuring performance rather than developing additional means.

The Group's commitment applies to trends: reduction, constant or growth. It is complemented by the definition of a guiding target value that can be revised depending on the rate of implementation of the EMS and any significant changes to the scope.

In 2008, the Group will complete production of its next environmental management plan by including ongoing research on the production of minimum standards applicable to all our activities.Within this framework, a liaison committee controlled by Executive Management and composed of the Vice President of the sustainable development department, a member of the Executive Committee of each division and representatives of the different managements concerned (Legal and R&D), will validate strategic plans in terms of environmental management, and will report to the Veolia Environnement Executive Committee annually.