COVER STORY
veolia . com / en . Directly , Veolia works with municipalities in many third world countries to finance , build and operate water treatment plants providing clean water to the populations .
GN : What are the future innovations that you or your company pursuing ? Froment : The past few years have presented many challenges for Veolia Water Technologies , with a market that has been rapidly changing and we ourselves now need to change and adapt . As Veolia Water Technologies , our wealth is made of our technologies and we will keep capitalizing on them , improving them and developing new ones . Meanwhile , we want to simplify our portfolio of technologies , making them available faster and at a more competitive price point . We are also looking into digitalization of some of our standard equipment . Another key point for us is to further develop our bundled services , for instance our mobile water services , traceability for specific regulations , digital functions , etc . There is a strong demand for these types of services and we want to better capitalize on that through our local teams . We are still relying on our strong design and engineering capabilities to secure some big design-andbuild contracts , for instance for desalination plants in the Middle East , municipal water and wastewater treatment plants in Europe , Africa and Asia , and industrial projects in North and South America .
GN : What impact have you delivered ( social , economic and environmental )? Do you have metrics or statistics of your accomplishments ? Froment : Here is an infographic of Veolia ’ s accomplishments : ( See figure A )
THE CHALLENGES & SOLUTIONS GN : What are the greatest challenges in the water industry ? What do you think the government , private companies and NGO of each country should do to get rid of this ? How do we provide water accessibility to more than 7 billion people ? Froment : Demand for raw materials , including water , is exploding as a result of demographic growth , rising living standards and climate change . As we are all aware , we cannot endlessly draw on the natural environment – a number of shortages are already making themselves felt and the growth model based on linear consumption ( extract-use-throw away ) has reached its limits . Scarcity of raw materials , scarcity of water , carbon footprint : these are huge challenges facing our world today . The management of environmental issues is becoming increasingly important and complex in
Figure A : Infographic of Veolia ' s Accomplishments
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SEPTEMBER 2016 Clean Water Technologies