Creating value for all

Maryse Aulagnon, Senior Independent Director of the Veolia Board of Directors, presents her viewpoint.

In early 2018, Laurence D. Fink, CEO of the BlackRock investment fund, sent a long letter to the heads of the companies in which BlackRock had invested. He explained his vision of what a company is and his desire for new governance and investment criteria.

“To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society. Companies must benefit all of their stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers, and the communities in which they operate.”

BlackRock is clearly inviting us to go beyond corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards, as it considers that a company’s financial performance must go hand in hand with its social, societal and environmental “profitability.”

Creating shared value is central to Veolia’s strategy. It informs our goal of “Resourcing the world” and is embedded in our nine sustainable development commitments for 2015–2020: three for the planet, three for regions, and three for employees.

However, above all, these commitments emerge from our businesses as a manager of environmental services for public-sector and industrial customers. During World Water Day on March 22, 2017, UN-Water, which coordinates all water-related actions within the United Nations, asked us to present our actions in Durban, South Africa, as part of the presentation of the world report on “Wastewater: The Untapped Resource.” Durban, a city of 3.5 million people, is confronted with growing pressures on its water resources. Under a public-private partnership, Veolia not only manages the wastewater treatment plant but sells treated wastewater to industry for use in their manufacturing processes. The profit is shared with the municipality, which allocates the money to improve water access within its region. The contract includes a significant social clause covering diversity, local employment, training and skills transfer. The origins of this “shared value” experience are the trust established between the municipality and the company, an overview of the entire region and its difficulties, and a call for innovation – not only for technology, but also for social and contractual aspects. Only innovation can lead to doing more with less, which implies conserving resources while continuing to find answers to our customers’ growing needs.

I am in no doubt that the creation of shared value will, in the near future, lead us to specify conditions for sharing between customers, shareholders, employees and the other stakeholders, especially regional authorities and suppliers. “A company’s ability to manage environmental, social and governance matters demonstrates the leadership and good governance that is so essential to sustainable growth, which is why we are increasingly integrating these issues into our investment process,” wrote the CEO of BlackRock.

In February, it announced that it had exceeded the 5% threshold of ownership in Veolia’s share capital.

Employees

Shareholders

Regions

Users

Planet