What is environmental security?

In a world where vital resources like water, energy, and raw materials are becoming scarce, critical, and strategic, yesterday’s environmental challenges have turned into major security crises. Conflicts over water, rare earths, and energy directly threaten the continuity of economic activities, the strategic autonomy of territories, and the well-being of populations.

What is environmental security?

In collaboration with researchers from Columbia University and HEC, Veolia has defined environmental security as “the stable condition where people and communities possess the essential resources and capabilities to effectively manage, plan, and adapt to the future amid interconnected challenges linked to accelerating changes to our human ecology and the environment."

For Veolia, environmental security means:

Providing proprietary solutions to meet critical needs

Ensuring resources and services are available, affordable, and reliable

Guaranteeing the continuity and competitiveness
of industries

Ensuring the resilience of cities and the health
of communities

Environmental security as an investment, not a constraint

Environmental security should not be seen as an additional constraint imposed on companies and territories. Above all, it is a strategic investment in the capacity to absorb shocks, adapt to changes, and create the conditions for sustainable well-being. Those who anticipate this reality do not suffer the future: they build it, transforming environmental risks into opportunities for growth, competitiveness, and resilience.

Veolia: your global partner for environmental security

In the face of these challenges, Veolia is the trusted partner to ensure environmental security on a global scale with local precision.

Present in 56 countries across 5 continents, we deploy proprietary solutions that combine our three areas of expertise, water, energy, waste to create high-impact synergies where challenges are most complex.

With 26 research centers and over 4,600 patents, our advanced technological capabilities position us as an international driver of environmental security. Our innovation for environmental security allows us to transform constraints into opportunities and to rapidly deploy advanced solutions worldwide, such as PFAS treatment, bioenergy production, treated wastewater reuse, and integrated, circular solutions for data centers.

We do not wait for crises. We invent the answers before anyone knows they need them. We build the technologies. File the patents. Perfect the processes. We have become a true engine of environmental security.

Estelle Brachlianoff, CEO, Veolia

Estelle Brachlianoff, Veolia's Chief Executive Officer

Data Center Resource 360: our integrated offering serving the global data center industry

Up to
+20%
efficiency in energy reuse by recovering waste heat to heat neighboring districts.

Up to
-75%
of water footprint thanks to advanced treatment and complete optimization of the water cycle, including regeneration.

Up to
95%
recycling and recovery of critical electronic waste and cooling chemicals.

Concrete examples of environmental security

For the competitiveness and right to operate of industries

Taiwan — United States

Regeneration of used solvents and acids utilized in the microelectronics industry, achieving over 50% circularity for the products involved.

Metz, France

Hydrometallurgical recycling of hazardous waste to recover lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper from electric vehicle batteries.

For the strategic autonomy of territories

Windhoek, Namibia

Direct recycling of wastewater into drinking water.

Australia

Near-infinite recycling of water for a lithium mine, effectively doubling its capacity.

Sur, Oman

Secure water supply enabled by the world’s first desalination plant powered by renewable energy.

San Francisco, USA

A wastewater treatment plant produces 68 GWh/year of biomethane, injected into the Pacific Gas & Electric natural gas network.

For health protection

Europe — United States — Australia

PFAS pollution has become a growing global concern. Veolia is at the forefront in Europe, the United States, and Australia with its BeyondPFAS offering, an integrated solution from detection and water treatment to soil remediation and destruction.

Port Arthur, USA

High-temperature incineration with up to 99.9999% destruction rate of targeted PFAS.

Testimonials from our stakeholders

Shareholders & financial partners

For shareholders, environmental security is directly linked to the long-term sustainability of the company’s operations.

Environmental security acts as a common language connecting investors, municipalities, regulators, communities, and shareholders around a shared vision, aligning individual interests towards collective action and tangible value creation.

In short, environmental security is not simply an environmental concern for Veolia. It is a framework for shared value creation.

Environmental security is a key element that complements the security of people, infrastructure, cybersecurity, etc. It is a matter of business continuity for companies and organizations. Although it is still often addressed in terms of risks, it is increasingly becoming a source of opportunity for those who anticipate this crucial aspect of our future.

Clients

The main co-benefits of environmental security are, first, the protection of water resources, second, the strengthening of climate resilience, and then, support for economic stability.

Environmental Security: a pillar of sovereignty and prosperity