Veolia’s Future Generations Council held its second meeting in Paris from October 13 to 15, 2025, with 14 new members from outside Veolia joining the Secretary General and 15 existing council members. Together they discussed future scenarios centering on risk culture and the industry of the future, then presented Estelle Brachlianoff with priority levers for action to take by 2035.
Council members are the driving force for ecological transformation worldwide
Members of Veolia’s 30-strong Future Generations Council form a unique group of people from a range of backgrounds, including entrepreneurs, scientists, policy experts, and engineers. Fourteen new members have now joined the Secretary General and 15 Veolia employees who have been members since April 2025. They all have a shared commitment to working for urgently needed systemic change in their home countries and internationally.
The council acts as a one-of-a-kind platform for direct dialogue between young leaders and senior management at Veolia, a Group that operates in some 50 countries worldwide. This first cycle of the Future Generations Council, running from spring 2025 to spring 2026, the council aims to put forward a set of deliverable levers for action to help invent an industry that is locally rooted, resilient in the face of uncertainty, and operates within planetary boundaries.
The council’s work centers on three central challenges:
- operating within planetary boundaries by rethinking innovation as a factor for transformation that is constrained by planetary boundaries;
- defining Veolia’s role in the regions where it operates and building trust locally;
- turning uncertainty into a source of resilience and long-term value creation.
During its second session, the council looked at different scenarios for 2050 (feared and desirable), then identified levers for real-world transformations to trigger by 2035 to bring about the desirable outcome.
Veolia’s Future Generations Council explores levers for inventing the industry of the future
Discussions with Estelle Brachlianoff identified two priority levers for the next phase of the council’s work:
- governance and shareholder make-up to embed Veolia’s leadership role in systemic and ethical transformation;
- data and AI as tools to grow knowledge, skills, and decision-making.
The discussions highlighted Veolia’s unique role connecting communities with industry, and regions with global solutions, as an economic actor with the ability to disseminate knowledge and roll out solutions that support human progress at the local level.
These levers will be examined in greater depth in April 2026 during the third council session, and proposals for actions that could be implemented by the Group will then be submitted to the Executive Committee.
I always welcome ideas for deliverable actions that we can take to make things change in the right direction, to speed up. I am very keen to explore how to take the themes you have chosen further and make them a reality!
Estelle Brachlianoff, CEO of Veolia.
Future Generations: a collective definition
The 30 members of the Future Generations Council together drafted a definition of their role as future generations to guide their work during their mandate:
"We, Future generations, are the living beings and those to come who will live with the consequences of choices and actions we inherit and make, embodying both the challenges and possibilities we pass on. We are the stewards of humanity and nature, reflecting our collective imagination and a reminder that each generation is part of a continuous thread through time.
Our collective legacy is to preserve ecosystems, protect vulnerable communities, cultures, and ancestral wisdom, while empowering fellow human beings with the mindset and tools to thrive and foster wellbeing amid uncertainty."
Council members met in Paris from October 13-15, 2025
“Veolia launches its Future Generations Council” (april 2025)