Integrated report 2021-2022: The global champion of ecological transformation

 Veolia's success is also due to the excellent shape the Group is in, more than twelve years after you took the helm. 

A.F. Yes, our Group is doing well. There are several reasons for this: The relevance of its strategy and the quality of its implementation, the strong involvement of its teams, and their expertise and capacity for innovation. But there is another reason: Veolia has given itself a purpose. As a result, it knows why, for whom and how it wants to be useful to its stakeholders; it knows where its ambitions will take it and can concentrate its forces in such a way as to achieve its goals. In the end, this is also what is important for delivering good results in the long term. From this point of view, 2021 was an excellent year: Our revenue was €28.5 billion, up 9.6% on the previous year, and 6.5% on 2019, which was already a record year. The same trend can be seen in our EBITDA, which grew by 16% to €4.2 billion. Over the years, we have focused our business model on the most buoyant sectors; we have made our organization more agile and responsive; and we have incorporated more added value into our products and services. The results are there, as again in 2021 we achieved many commercial successes. For example, the €13 billion contract to operate and maintain the heating network for the city of Tashkent in Uzbekistan; the concession to supply water to 2 million people in Miyagi, Japan, with a cumulative revenue of nearly €800 million; the management of the second largest oil refinery in South Africa (Engen); the ten-year contract to operate the sulfuric acid recycling facility at the Talara refinery in Peru; and the fifteen-year energy efficiency contract with the University of Parma, Italy.
These achievements show that our Group is running at full speed and has maintained its commercial momentum, while actively preparing for the merger with Suez.

E.B. That Veolia has a purpose is first and foremost thanks to you, Antoine. No one knows better than you the determination it took to push this issue forward, first with the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, and the Critical Friends committee, and then throughout the company. With our purpose, you have launched a profound intellectual, strategic, and managerial revolution. Our purpose is very important, especially for the young people who join us. When they find out about it, they say to themselves: “This company has a soul; it’s worth committing to it.”