Water is a strategic asset. You only have to look at the war in Iran right now. We have Veolia plants surrounded by Patriot missiles. I'm Estelle Brachlianoff, I'm 54. For four years, I've been the CEO of Veolia. The summer of 2026, which seems exceptional, will very quickly become the norm. Temperatures equal to or above 40 degrees. I believe we have about half the solutions today, and the other half has to be invented. So my priority, I admit, is for the half that exists — what are we waiting for to deploy it? I tell myself, 'Damn, we're not going to wait for the next enormous heatwave to say, 'Oh yeah, right, I should have reacted in 2026. Water is a strategic asset.' We've had places in the United States where mayors had to tell local farmers, 'Sorry, you can't irrigate your fields because we're going to have to cool the data center.' You can imagine that went down well.
What do we say to the women listening to us? What are the secrets to becoming a CEO?
Follow your instinct and follow your desire. There's nothing worse than following what you're supposed to do and then daring to go for it. I never give up on anything, I never let go.
Someone listening to us who says, 'I absolutely have to work with this woman' — what already disqualifies you?
The absence of vital energy, enthusiasm, the desire to go for it. Every time I've made casting mistakes, it's when I told myself, 'Well, he or she checks almost all the boxes.' Except I didn't feel the desire. Every time, it's been a mistake.
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We can start there, actually, if you want. Estelle, because the chairman of the company — so it's Antoine Frérot — was the previous CEO. He was the chairman. Yes. No, because you were asking me how to pronounce my family name. Brachlianoff. No, I'm telling you it's Brachlianoff. Brachlianoff. There you go. [laughter] You're telling me there's someone who pronounces it differently. There's someone who pronounces it differently, it's Antoine Frérot. Because 21 years ago, when I joined the company, he said Brachlianoff at the time, and I didn't dare correct him. He got used to it, and so now he's pretty much the only one who still says Brachlianoff. Anyway, it's written in Cyrillic to begin with, since it comes from Bulgaria. So Brachlianoff, Brachlianoff — all of that is a bit theoretical. That was one of the questions I was asking myself in this episode. So there are plenty of them. What, Brachlianoff — that's not very French, that thing. Frérot. And we're going to talk about — we're going to talk about you, we're going to talk about Veolia, which for me is a kind of company that we know but don't really know. It was a bit like Saint-Gobain. I recently received our friend Benoît Bazin. In fact, I really learned about it — and it's normal that we don't know Veolia, since 40% of the company has changed in the last six years, in the end. And so I'm delighted to be able to do this, to understand what Veolia is, what's inside it. We're going to talk about energy, we're going to talk about water, we're going to talk about waste, renewables, ecology, management, lots of things. And Antoine Frérot was the chairman for a very long time. So he was your direct boss. Absolutely. Yeah. And today, what is the relationship between a former chairman who became chairman and you, the current CEO? How does that work? Because it's often a bit of a thorn in the side, a former one.
Well, in theory, this whole thing isn't supposed to work. Except that in practice, from the beginning, when — I mean, when I was offered the job, when we talked, we were, I think, both quite convinced, he and I, that it could work — maybe by exception, I don't know. Because it's him, and because it's me, and because we know each other well. OK. I grew up in the company; I did other things before, but I joined Veolia 21 years ago. So we got to know each other too. I didn't always work for him — I was below him, and then little by little I moved up in the company. And so the relationship with him is quite wonderful because it's simple, it's fluid, it's natural. I ask lots of questions on subjects that, in a way, aren't particularly the chairman's subjects, but where I try to benefit from his acquired experience, his instinct, what he senses. And then, anyway, it's me who decides — of course, he's left me total freedom on the subject — but having a bit of his perspective on things is precious, because the CEO job is a very solitary one.
Sort of a super consultant in the end?
No, because it's about goodwill, using experience — but he's lived it himself. So a consultant — that could be a bit theoretical. Not at all. It's rather someone who has himself lived through things that weren't always easy and who wants it to work.
There's no real subordination link, like how the chairman works?
So the chairman is the chairman of Veolia's board of directors, and so in a way, it's to them that I have to answer, deliver results, since he represents all the stakeholders of the company. We obviously think of shareholders, but for me the company is much more than just shareholders. When I say stakeholders, it's the clients, it's society, it's our employees too. In fact, there are employee representatives on Veolia's board of directors. Three.
Three out of 13. So that's not bad.
13. Well, that's a 13 at the table. No problem there. For me, it's a lucky number. It's my daughter's birthday. Everything's fine. There's a — ah, I'm going to start there, even though Clémence forbade me, because I'm going to hide behind our friend Clément, because it's a question that was proposed to us in our preparation, and she told me, 'As a child, you wanted to be an astronaut or an astrophysicist, and you end up in the trash. What happened?'
But there's beauty in it, and I see stars in the trash, because in fact we turn waste into a resource. It's very, very noble what Veolia is. But beyond the joke — no, I did have my head in the stars, but I've always had my head in the stars and my feet on the ground. I think that's what perhaps characterizes me. And yes. So I dreamed a lot about astrophysics books that I understood absolutely nothing about, which had been given to me a bit by chance. And I'd turn the pages telling myself maybe one day I'll understand what's written on those pages. It took me a very long time afterwards, and some fairly advanced studies, to understand what was written in that astrophysics book. And then I still — in August — open my eyes wide at a starry sky. I find it absolutely incredible. It totally makes me dream.
You got as far as understanding. Don't worry, I don't understand anything at all anymore.
That's the beauty of those studies — that at some point we understood things, and then afterwards, since we don't use them much, not at all really — I even did quantum mechanics back then. So I'm left with ideas and a feeling, but not the full understanding, unfortunately.
That's interesting. It's at Polytechnique that you start to understand that. In a school like that, they explain it to you.
Oh yes, we have courses in astrophysics and quantum mechanics. And it's extraordinary — but astrophysics is almost philosophy. Quantum mechanics even more so, you know — the observer changes the observed object. He's not neutral about what he's observing, for example. That's a notion that is absolutely incredible when you think about it a bit.
Yes. And it's true that — on quantum physics — I received the CEO of Pasqal, and he told me it probably took him seven years of intensive study and research in quantum to understand what he was talking about. Afterwards I said, 'Can you popularize that?' He said, 'Well, it's not obvious, actually.'
No, it's not obvious. Afterwards, when I had brilliant professors — one of them was Alain Aspect, who has the first name too — when you have brilliant professors, despite your own personal mediocrity, you feel like you've understood the world. There are moments of almost happiness, of revelation and understanding. Well, they fade quite quickly, but that's what it is to be around talented people.
I have two questions about that, because we have quite a few Polytechniciens who end up in jobs like yours. What does it bring to a job like the one at Veolia? And the other, which is more personal — do you not miss that part of it?
I'll start with the second part of the question. Why didn't I continue in that world? Because I loved it — you understood that well, the passion you must feel in my voice. No, why I didn't continue — because one of the things that has always driven me is rather curiosity, meeting people, discovering things. I even spent some time in a research lab at Stanford. Everyone was very, very brilliant. But I asked myself whether I wanted to spend 30 or 40 years digging a very small furrow that is brilliant, maybe, or not even — but for which there are three people in the world I could talk to about it. And so digging a deep furrow — in the end, I realized it wasn't really my thing, and that I preferred to discover the world a bit. And so I've never regretted it from that point of view. Afterwards, I still have curiosity, including from time to time to look into how research is advancing on those subjects. And it's quite funny, because things that — well, I'm very, very old, you know, I'm 54. Which means that when I did my studies, there were a number of things we thought couldn't be proven or observed, and then science has evolved so fast that now they've become things taught practically in the final year of high school. So it's that ongoing evolution. I still have a form of fascination, and also wonder — because it's not just intellectual. When I say look at the stars in August — it's almost physical. It's like listening to music. It goes right through you.
That's true. And in your job today, do you think —
Ah yes, what use is all that to me? Directly, none at all. Scientific studies teach you three things. They teach you to think based on facts — I hope rather well. It's the only studies that teach that. They teach you how to learn, perhaps. And then, where engineering or scientific studies specifically have probably nourished me a lot, is that I'm very much a problem, a solution. OK, there's something that seems impossible to untangle. I always find myself saying, 'No, no, we must be able to find a way.' There are no problems, only solutions. They're not there now, but they might be there in three years, in five years, or in two months. And that's a mindset people often tell me about — 'Oh, we can see, Estelle, that you did scientific studies.' [laughter] That's my natural way of thinking.
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Well, it's not just the studies — sorry, I can't hear you — it's not just the studies, it's also their professional and personal life path and everything. I think a company is much stronger, much more innovative, if around the table there are people who don't look alike. So it's great to have engineers, but there aren't only engineers, and it's increasingly diverse around Veolia's executive committee table, and that's a good thing. So yes, I think of one or two people for whom I've often thought — who work totally on feeling, with a sense of timing and everything, who aren't entirely organized in an analytical way — and I say, that's great, because it's by discussing that we manage to build something that's better than the sum of each of us.
That's true. That's true. Before tackling all these topics I mentioned earlier, if you don't mind, I'd like you to introduce yourself, even though we've already talked about you a bit.
Well, I'm Brachlianoff — so I said I'm 54, married, two children that I adore, that I see — that I see, yes, that I don't see enough, but I hope to keep some — well, weekends, vacations. Well, there can be exceptions, but I try to keep them to a minimum. And then there's my eldest daughter, I see her less because she lives in London now because she's doing her studies. So that's for other reasons than just my professional agenda. And so for four years, I've been the CEO of Veolia, a company where I grew up and that I love because it does wonderful things. It supplies — one glass out of three that we drink in France comes from Veolia, from our services — one glass of water out of three, sorry. We collect one ton of waste out of five for French residents, and we produce the energy or heating equivalent for three million people in France. I'm talking about France, but that's only roughly a bit less than a fifth of the group. Four-fifths of the group is outside France — in Europe, the United States, Australia, South America.
Your first country outside France is the United States. OK. So where it's potentially big compared to France — maybe in revenue, well, less big — but on the other hand, in market share, you still have big growth potential.
So in Europe, in all the European countries where we are, we have 15, 20% market share, 25 — well, it depends a bit. In the United States, we chose sectors where we're strong rather than spreading out over all sorts of things and having 3% market share. So we're very present in water in the United States and in hazardous waste. And in water, we're number two, and in hazardous waste, number two as well in the United States.
We're the world number one in our businesses. But number two in the United States in those two parts of the business, anyway.
Sorry? Water in the United States.
Number two. Yes, absolutely.
Sorry. Number two. Incredible. Who's number one?
Number one is an American company that I think someone here will know. American Water.
Interesting. Interesting — the question I ask myself about businesses like that. So Veolia is the successor of the Compagnie Générale des Eaux, is that right? I'll let you continue. No, but it's the moment when Vivendi —
Veolia has more than 170 years of history. So it was born in Lyon, in fact, in the 19th century. In the 19th century, starting — I think it's interesting, actually — starting from a scientific intuition of Pasteur, who said, 'We drink 80% of our diseases.' So providing healthy tap water in France was also a way of reducing diseases and preserving the population's health. That intuition has always run through us. It's still the case today. Well, we're not talking about the same pollutants as in the 19th century. We're talking about new pollutants, and so we innovate — PFAS, for example — and so we innovate, we develop technologies. But it's always the same idea: the health of the population. We're on essential services. I was talking about hazardous waste. Hazardous waste is also a way of preserving health, because it's actually the effluents that industry discharges — solvents, PCBs, things like that — but that we destroy to prevent them from ending up in the river, the sea, or the air, and ultimately becoming a health problem for everyone. And then I could go on — and waste. There we're more on the circular economy, recycling as much as possible to find in our waste the resource mines of tomorrow.
So at the origin, it was the Lyonnaise des Eaux.
At the origin, no — the Lyonnaise des Eaux wasn't in Lyon. I know, it's complicated. It was the Compagnie Générale des Eaux. You're quite right. You're quite right. So it started with water, and exclusively in France — and I said it, even in Lyon. And then little by little, little by little, essential services — it wasn't just water, it was also energy, it was also waste. So there were diversifications that happened in France, and then afterwards, in the 1990s and 2000s, the company went international. So yes, you're quite right.
If I pick that up, there was roughly — what was it — was it during the Jean-Marie Messier era? No — was it split off from Vivendi, or was it after that period?
Yes, absolutely. It became Vivendi Environnement, then Veolia Environnement for more than 20 years now.
And so at that time, it was only water management.
It was already — I'd say we had a real diversification in waste and energy in the 1990s. It really took off. We were even in transport at one point, in cable. There was an enormous amount of diversification. The group's perimeter today has been stable for, I'd say, 25, 30 years.
We did a great episode — we have a podcast called Fleuron. Well, it was the test episode, Clément — it was number one, number zero, right? On Vivendi. Yeah. And which has nothing to do with it anymore. You understood that. Well, you understood it, sorry. No, but what's interesting — what's interesting, which I hadn't understood before doing this episode, is the similarities in these businesses. That is to say, roughly, Vivendi with Canal Plus, with the cable — the cable — the cable, the public service delegations for cable — came from the idea of how water was originally distributed. It came from there. And then afterwards, each went its own way, but at the beginning it was a bit the same idea. We're on great infrastructures, actually — something in every home. That was quite interesting. And then all of that was split off. But so — yeah. It's quite fascinating. We talk a lot, in the end, about things that are very much of the moment. In preparing this episode, I saw that in many international rankings, you as a business leader, but Veolia too as a company, are seen as very strategic assets of political, geopolitical sovereignty, etc. That must be quite fascinating, because obviously you think, 'Wait — waste, water, energy — things are happening.' It can also be a hindrance. I mean, for example, in the United States, maybe you can't grow too much, because having a French actor that's too big in energy, water, and waste — Donald Trump is going to say, 'She's nice, Estelle, but actually I don't want to depend on these people.'
Well, the good news is that it's not Donald Trump who decides, anyway — it's done at the local level. So it's not done in Washington or in the Oval Office, it's done at the level below. That's what gives us significant growth in the United States. Well — no, you're quite right. It's true that what were subjects — water, waste, energy — subjects that were rather about essential services, or environmental themes, have become issues that are ultimately even about defense, about security. What I call ecological security — we realize that indeed water is a strategic asset. You only have to look at the war in Iran right now. Desalination plants are being bombed. We have Veolia plants surrounded by Patriot missile batteries. To give you an idea — in France, in this case it's in the Gulf countries, but even in France, it's considered a vital interest operation. And we have regular discussions with the ministries, I'd say, responsible for ensuring everyone's security. When we look at minerals — strategic minerals, lithium, cobalt, nickel — when Trump and Xi Jinping had a bit of a spat a few months ago, the first thing the Chinese president did was turn off the tap on rare earths. So we realize that these are strategic subjects — access to these precious minerals, because that's what allows, in the coming years — that's what allows ensuring the energy transition. We have all that in our phone batteries, in our electric bike or electric car batteries. And it turns out that in waste, we can find a source of these minerals, and by recycling them, it finally makes us more independent of importing them. The cost issue — the cost issue is always the same. If we had an infinite world of recycled resources, it might seem more expensive than just going to get them in mines if they were infinite. Well, it's the same with water — and then suddenly, we find ourselves with a summer where for a week there are water restrictions. There are businesses that are forced to close, actors who can't irrigate anymore. And there we realize that the cost of not having water, or the cost of not having access to these raw materials — or I'll go back to energy — the cost of having to depend on Russian gas, the Germans know something about that. It seems great for a few years because it's cheap gas, and then we realize that we've become dependent. So there's also an aspect of sovereignty, of independence, and of being able to have reliable supply sources. And everything Veolia does in terms of supply — water, raw materials, or even energy — these are local resources, and they have the merit of being renewable resources, but they also avoid depending on imports, on other countries. And besides, the purchasing power issue is a major issue — I could talk to you about it — on which we innovate to be as efficient as possible, and everything I'm saying costs as little as possible too.
That's the intrinsic limit I mentioned earlier. That is to say, it works because you're — we're French — so we're going to talk a bit about France. But when you have four-fifths of your business abroad, I imagine in some countries it can be a bit fragile, because if tomorrow — if I understood correctly — the English have done whatever they want with water, at least — what's it called — Thames Water, which has been on the brink of bankruptcy for two years. And there you go. In fact, what's funny is that we — well, we have a sort of — because it's well done, because you do your job well and you're probably not the only one — we tell ourselves in our unconscious, we don't even tell ourselves that it's normal that the water coming out of the tap is clean, more or less. I did put a filter for the PFAS — you said PFAS, PFAS, I don't know how you say it. But the idea is that we tell ourselves all this is normal. I have the impression that the English right now are telling themselves —
Well, you're absolutely right. Well, I don't think it's failed — I think it's just the English. You'll remember — could you — sorry — to finish on — I'll come back to nationalism, perhaps your question on Thames Water. I don't want to, actually — you don't want to, but would it be possible? Would the English — but I don't think it's our job to buy Thames Water. Our job is to help Thames Water, whatever its owners, to finally solve the problem. There you go — we sell unique technologies. We're the world number one in patents in our businesses and the number one patent holder. So Thames Water, whatever the next owners are — once there are people who will put things right — these people, we tell them: we know how to help you reduce leaks in the water distribution networks, because it's the London region — Thames — we can help you make sure that — there you go. And so it's the great — not the great London — it's the water of Greater London. We have incredible leak rates, we have wastewater that isn't always treated before being discharged into the river — things that seem inconceivable in France, and yet it's a neighboring country, also as rich as us. So in fact, we tell them — not every day of the year, but as soon as it rains a bit, a lot — everything ends up directly in a certain number of rivers, and so it caused scandals in Great Britain. And the reality is very, very rare. It's very, very rare. It's really a tiny percentage, with very specific cases where it can happen, but it's very, very rare, and it's declared every time, by the way, by the water companies and everything. All this to say that we have the technologies and we have the know-how. We have the experience to help Thames Water and its next owners to do their job better, to reduce leaks, to treat wastewater, and even to make sure that there are fewer and fewer water restrictions. Because you're talking about Great Britain — well, there, it might surprise you, but Great Britain, where it rains a lot, by the way, it's quite famous for that, is a country that is in water stress across the whole southern part of the country, south of Birmingham, for geological reasons, actually. So I could talk to you about it.
Yes, that surprises me. It's a bit further north, so it does surprise me a bit, actually, because I lived in London for a year.
Yes. Well, in this case, it rains a bit less than in Paris, actually, cumulatively over the year, but on the other hand, a little bit every day.
I lived there for six years, I remember.
No, but all this to say that even in Great Britain, there are desalination plants, you know. That also surprises a lot of people. So they have an issue, including water restrictions during the summer. The summer we just had in Great Britain, there were places where there was no tap water, or at least where you weren't allowed to water your garden, wash your car, and all that. So making sure to save water and find new water sources — for example, with wastewater recycling — is something we have everything we need to offer as solutions to our British friends. And I was coming back to — you were saying, 'Do we have to go to the other end of the planet to realize that actually we're lucky, we have tap water and it works well and it comes out?' Well, let's not forget the summer we just had this year, or the summer of 2022, where there were water restrictions in France, and not only in the south of France. The Mediterranean regions were particularly affected, but in Brittany, in places we didn't think — we didn't think we'd one day see water shortages. In those places — sorry, I don't have them here, I know there were some, but I didn't experience them. It's not just pools and cars and outdoor watering. We start by — we start by obviously reducing the uses that are less essential than tap water. Of course, but there were sometimes needs to bring water in tankers, in trucks. And the good news is that we have everything we need. We've learned over time, we have everything we need to make sure we no longer have water restrictions and to solve those problems — if we act now, and if we anticipate, and if we don't wait for the next crisis, if we don't wait for the next summer with heatwaves, droughts, and so on. These are technologies, these are know-how, these are things we've deployed all over the world, and so — France is a country blessed by the gods. Of course, we learned what I just told you in places that had it hotter, thirstier earlier — I don't know, southern Europe, Spain. Let's not wait for crises before acting. That's generally what frustrates me the most. It's great — and then suddenly, the news moves on to something else. We forget, even though in these businesses we need planning. I'm in long-term businesses at Veolia. Well, it takes a few years each time to put in place and deploy solutions.
It's crazy, because when you — I hadn't thought about that again, but a few weeks ago I went down a geek rabbit hole on ChatGPT or Claude, actually, on this water story. I wasn't thinking about it while preparing this episode, because at one point I thought, 'But you, who did physics and all that, you say it's not all that.' I mean, we could no longer have restrictions. We could — when you see what rains in the winter — well, afterwards, indeed, the — what were they called — the mega reservoirs or things like that, it's not very fashionable. Between storage — but in fact you say all that ends up in the sea. There's a problem with hydraulics, I also have the impression, with agriculture. From what I understood in that discussion, it's quite — it's complex but it's not unfixable. If I wanted to go to the other extreme, I could tell myself, well, if we did whatever we wanted, if we didn't do mega reservoirs, we could just build 10 big desalination plants and they do that very well. In the end, it's Veolia that's the world leader in desalination. Yeah. And it costs a lot. Well, am I wrong about that? Is it —
Well, where you're not wrong is that solutions exist. Well, they're not always simple, and we've put in innovation, patents to find them. But now that they exist, what are we waiting for to deploy them? From that point of view, you're absolutely right, rather than complaining and all that. To keep it simple — water, well first of all, water irrigates our lives. We immediately think of tap water. But everything we eat, obviously, agriculture needs water, industry needs water. And so today in the world, I don't know if you realize, there's 70% — artificial intelligence, data centers need water. So without water, there's nothing, finally. So 70% of water is consumed by agriculture, 20% by industry, and 10% by populations. That's a global statistic. 70% is agriculture, 20% industry, and 10% the population. We think of the glass — and so we think of the glass of water — it's that the 10%, in this case, is part of the 10%, because when I say population, it's also gardens, it's toilets, it's showers, it's not just the glass of water. But let's not forget industry and let's not forget agriculture. So it's a holistic solution that's needed, with generally — and the modern world forbids us the right to complexity — but there are solutions, but it's often a mix. I don't have a magic wand saying in three words, here's what to do. The mix is what? It's avoiding waste, finding new water sources. And when you've done all that — and finally avoiding waste, finding new water sources. Avoiding waste — well, at home or among industrialists, there are good practices that allow consuming less water without doing much — showers rather than baths. And among industrialists, there are industrial processes that are more efficient than others. And even for irrigation, drip irrigation is more efficient than general sprinkling. The second subject is finding new water sources — let's say recycling water. Well, there's wastewater recycling, which is something that's barely deployed in France, much more deployed in Spain, and very well deployed in the Middle East. We're talking industry, we're talking agriculture — we know how to make pure water from wastewater of any quality, depending on what we need. We can even remake drinking water from wastewater. We have all the technologies — from the toilet, you're capable of drinking water. There you go. Yes. Well, afterwards, it's perhaps not the first thing to do. So the first thing to do — because it's the highest level of quality, you can imagine. The first thing to do is at the outlet of the toilets, as you say. There's anyway a treatment plant that does a first part of the cleaning. And then we add other types of cleaning to serve farmers for irrigation, to clean city streets. I don't know if you realize that city streets are cleaned almost all the time with drinking water, which is totally useless.
What's crazy is that even in our toilets, there's drinking water. That too, I mean. Well, afterwards, actually, listening to you, I think, yes, we're talking about 10% of water consumption versus the 70 — you said 70% for agriculture and 20% for industry. In the end, it's the thickness of the line, somewhere. I have the impression we only hear about that on the radio, and when I listen to you, I think, well, indeed, you think, somewhere I take the water with which I wash my hands, I brush my teeth, etc. If it could be reused by my toilets, it might not be stupid.
In this case, it wouldn't change much. It wouldn't change much, and it would cost a lot to set up a —
The second pipe. We talk about it a bit everywhere, yes. Yes, it's Nordic, etc. It's not really very deployed because, overall, it's very expensive for very little compared to what I just said. 100% where I'd have the most efficiency, for example, is the three things: first, avoid waste, find water sources, for example, wastewater recycling, and then when we've done all that — and we still have work to do in France, by the way — desalination, seawater, but that's the last solution when we've done everything else. But waste, for example, in reality, the most concrete waste, the most important one compared to this drinking water that we put in toilets, is nothing.
Today, the average leakage rate in distribution networks — that is, you have a drinking water production plant and then you send it through pipes so it ends up at your tap — there is a little bit of loss along the way because it travels kilometers and kilometers. This line loss, on average in France, is at 20%, which is rather a fairly low average compared to many countries. But there are cities and villages in France where it goes up to 30, 40, 50%. So beyond the average, there is 1 liter out of 5 that is lost in the networks, and there are cities and villages where it's almost 1 liter out of 2 that is lost in the networks. So, for example, no, there isn't physically — it can't be condensation or things like that. There is no water going through the pipes that are punctured, to put it very simply. It's pipes that are punctured.
So, and I come back to AI. I come back to AI. I said we have patents, we have innovations. The traditional way to avoid leaks in networks was to change the pipes. It costs a lot. You have to open up the sidewalks, put in a new pipe, etc. And so that's the traditional way. It works well but it's very expensive. We have developed at Veolia solutions to detect leaks exactly where they are occurring, because what I was telling you is that usually we change pipes a bit — historically we changed pipes a bit blindly. We say, well, every year, every year, we're going to change so many kilometers in the city, and we do it like that. Now we know with sensors where the leaks are occurring. So instead of changing blindly, we change exactly the small section of pipe that is leaking. That makes absolutely gigantic savings and it also allows us to reduce leaks. So it's AI used for a good cause, if I may say so.
You've reached 10% leakage rate?
Ah, but we even have places at Veolia where we distribute and we're at 6, 7% leakage rate. After that, it would be over-quality in a certain number of places compared to what it costs. But 10, 15% is already very, very good and that would apply to almost everywhere. But once again, there are places that are at 30, 40, 50%. The United States, on average, the leakage rate in water distribution networks in the United States is between 40 and 50%.
You said it, I said it, it's the second country of the group. So in a way, the United States is also a land of conquest for us. So the United States is well behind France on this subject, as on others. Veolia is a global group that is a leader in its field, and so we export.
And here we're talking about leakage rate, but across all networks — it's not just drinking water, it can be industrial water.
No, that's only drinking water, what I'm telling you. Yes. Well, for industry, I'll give you another example.
To produce 1 liter of — I don't know if I'm allowed to cite brands — of Coca or Pepsi, historically it took 6 liters of water to produce 1 liter, because all of that is lost in the production processes of the food industry. Nowadays, in the best Coca and Pepsi plants, we've come down to 1.6 liters of water to produce 1 liter of Coca. You can well imagine that the almost 5 liters saved — when I said avoid waste — that applies to water network distribution, but it also applies to industry in processes.
Thinking about it differently, thinking that water is a precious resource, so we have to economize it and even recycle it. And we're talking more and more in certain scientific circles and beyond about a kind of water war, that there will be a real shortage. I read about water and energy consumption. You're in both fields, by the way, in addition to waste. But is that a reality? Is it a reality in France? Is there a moment when we're going to run out of water? Especially with data centers — are there places where, if I tell you tomorrow I want to build 10 more data centers, you'd tell me it's not possible, we don't have the water? Is the reality of what we call a conflict of use — to avoid talking about water war, because that's more or less what you're saying — already a reality in many countries in the world?
I'll give you a very concrete example between India and Pakistan: when they both have a heat wave, one of them closes the tap on the Indus and the other immediately thinks, 'My country is not doing well if my neighbor is.' Because water has this particularity: it flows and it doesn't care much about borders between countries, between departments and regions — it flows gently. So India and Pakistan, that's a classic. There is even a historic agreement protocol to consider that water should not be used as a weapon of war, in a way. But even a year ago, that could have been the case.
In the Middle East — here it's the Indus, in this case the Indus starts in one country and crosses the other. And in the Middle East, that's often the case. We could talk about an island, we could talk about... So the fact that there are already literally geopolitical issues about water — that is a reality in many places in the world, for a long time. If we take one of the countries closer to us, today, you mentioned data centers, or even you talked about mega-reservoirs with agriculture three years ago — we remember the whole kind of water war around who will have the right to this resource.
Data centers in the United States are becoming a real issue of conflict of use between farmers. We've had places in the US — it's been the subject of certain newspapers — where mayors had to tell local farmers, 'Sorry, you can't irrigate your fields because we're going to have to cool the data center.' You can well imagine that this was very unpopular, and in fact it's becoming an issue in the US right now. Access to resources — water or energy — and the fact that we're starting to have a conflict of use between cities, agriculture, industry, and data centers. The good news is that we know how to recycle water for data centers too. So we have part of the solutions.
I tell myself — sorry, I'm a bit naive, I don't know this field — but water goes into a data center, so does it evaporate, or does it come out somewhere else normally, or does it circulate inside, cool things down, and then can it reach the farmer at the exit, no?
Yes, the thing is that anyway, when you're, I don't know, in Arizona or in Texas, sure, we can imagine recycling, but there's no water in the aquifers — those are arid places. So even before you talk about recycled water, where does it come from? We've set up projects in Mississippi with Amazon Web Services, or in Ohio, where we actually recycle water. But before even what you just said — that is, basically, it's the city's wastewater treatment plant, so it's the water from toilets, showers, and baths that, after treatment, cools the data center. And then you're right, once it leaves the data center, we can make a circular loop. But the first thing is not to allow the data center to draw from the aquifer, on top of everything, when there's simply no more water left.
Interesting. We have the same issue with mines — lithium mines, cobalt mines, mines like those in Australia, in South America.
But even a mine in the sense that we dig to find minerals needs enormous amounts of water, and there we found solutions to recycle it almost infinitely. So we draw it once, but then we use it infinitely. So that saves... I remember a client in Australia who wanted to double the capacity of his mine, except that the Ministry of the Environment had said, 'Very well, but you don't have the right to draw a single extra drop from nature.' They came to us — water had become a limiting factor for them. We put in technologies, a flow of evapoconcentration — it was quite complicated — to completely recycle the water for that mine, which allowed it to double its capacity. And why was lithium important? Because it's what ends up in our electric vehicle batteries, for example.
OK. So what you're saying is that it can be solved. If I go back to your India-Pakistan story — where does the water in my tap come from? In Paris, maybe from the Seine, I don't know.
The tap water in Paris — the Seine — well, in Paris, in the Paris region, it depends on which places, because we're in charge of the Paris region but not particularly Paris. So across the whole Paris agglomeration, the water comes notably from the Seine, and we clean it — we don't have too many problems there. Could Germany one day cut off the water? No — the resources of our rivers. And then there's a part we draw from aquifers and a part from rivers, basically in France. And so we don't have problems of that type. We have problems within France. I remember the droughts where the water that arrives, I don't know, in Marseille and all those places, actually comes from the Alps.
So the issue is rather between the department of such-and-such, the department of thing, the department of what's-its-name. You have to get them all together around the table to discuss a kind of water parliament. Yes. If you don't want to, you have to go all the way to the Alps — a little less. There you go.
OK. Interesting. And on that, the water we draw in all these cities — I come back to these mega-reservoirs — today we have an aquifer problem. I won't go too deep into it, but if I understand correctly, what is it? Is it agriculture that means the aquifers don't store enough?
No, the subject — if I summarize, all of this is the direct consequence of climate change. There have always been extreme events, but they're becoming more and more intense, more and more frequent. And that's why we talk about it much more than we did a few years ago. And it's coming — we know it's going to multiply. So the summer of 2026, which seems exceptional, will very quickly seem like the norm. And that's documented, we know it.
On the subject of agriculture, there too — sorry, I don't have a magic wand solution. We have a series of things to do. The first is to sometimes change what we grow depending on where in the country. We were talking about, I don't know, strawberries needing a lot of water. Maybe there's no point growing strawberries in places under water restrictions. And Spain has a big debate about what I'm saying, because obviously strawberries come largely from Spain, but they've already adapted what they grow. Then, when irrigating, drip irrigation — as I said — saves about 70% of water compared to spraying blindly like that in big fields. It's not always possible either. So it's not simple.
Then, once we've done all that, finding new water sources — I come back to it. Recycling wastewater to provide water for agriculture. That's what we do in the south of France, where I believe there are about 300 hectares of crops — I tried to find out, I think there must be apricot trees, vines, and everything — no, no, not at all — that are now supplied with water from treated wastewater. So that's quite nice, rather than having to depend on... The advantage of wastewater is that there's some all year round: as long as there's a population, there's wastewater. And then maybe one day we'll have to desalinate seawater.
You said earlier that Veolia is the world number one in seawater desalination, and I was talking about innovation. You're right, historically it's something that's very energy-intensive. So we innovated, we set up R&D teams to figure out how to consume less energy. We divided energy consumption by five in 20 years on desalination. Which makes it much more affordable and much greener than it was. After all, it's still desalination — of course, of course. In the Middle East, in the Gulf countries, it's between 50 and 90% of the water supplied by desalination.
And what's the price difference compared to drinking water?
It used to be two, three, four times more expensive. And thanks to the innovation, and the fact that it now consumes much less energy, I'd say it's becoming affordable. It's more expensive than if you're lucky enough to have, I don't know, the Alps' water tower behind you, but it's much less expensive than taking the risk of having no water for a few weeks a year.
So what is it? Is it 50% more expensive now, or...?
Ah, we have cases where it's almost equivalent in price, but once again, reliability — the fact of being sure to have water — that has an absolutely incredible value for many people.
And to finish on the last quarter hour — you said these are consequences of climate change. Maybe it's beyond your mandate, the question I'm asking, but we went to Acre, which is the most landlocked, most remote region of Brazil, totally in the west of Brazil. And we saw deforestation there with our own eyes. You tell yourself — you go from a totally bare place to a totally green place, and it's right next to each other, we're talking about 2 km. So you say, at some point, removing trees to do agriculture like that, putting thousands and thousands of cattle, etc., maybe climate change is also a consequence of all that. At what point could aquifers be regenerated in one way or another? That's not your field, is it?
There's a lot in your question, but overall, if I go back to climate change, there are two things. There's what we call mitigation — that is, preventing it from happening, or rather than 2, 3, 4 degrees, that we be at 1.5 degrees of warming. That's the work on the whole energy mix, on renewable energies, which is the essence of the debate and focuses on that. When we look at how we adapt to the consequences of climate change, we very quickly come to water issues. It's clear. The consequence of climate change is too much water, or not enough, or not at the right time, or not in the right place.
Because we talk about averages, but what's striking — and I'll come back to your Brazil example — what's striking is that we can have a drought for two months and the following week enormous floods. So it's not just the average water in the year, it's whether it falls in the spring when crops and small green leaves need it. If it falls too late or too early, it's, in quotes, useless compared to nature. So we can see that — and this is documented by all climatologists — it's not just the average, it's the distribution through the year. And so too much or too little, or not at the right time or not in the right place — that's the direct consequence of climate change on water.
That's why I was saying droughts, floods — in France, we're going to have more and more of them, and we have to act now so they have fewer possible consequences on people's lives, and so we ensure ecological security. As for South America, I know Brazil a little less well, but I know Chile very well, where we operate and are very present. Chile is very striking. In winter, there are places where there's no more snow on the Andes. The result of all this is that there's a growing drought. To give you an idea, we've been supplying the city of Santiago, Chile for decades — it's a very big city, 6 million inhabitants. And the river that supplied the city, the Mapocho River, has lost 75% of its flow over the last 10 years. 75% of its flow, and yet there's still water at the tap 24 hours a day. But we did everything I told you: we reduced leaks, we got people to save water at home, we did wastewater recycling, and so on. And one day in Chile, there will be desalination plants. There are already some starting for mines.
On climate change itself, deforestation is one of the subjects, one of the causes of climate change. It's not the only one. And from that point of view, you're absolutely right. But then again, we have to feed the people on the planet. That is, the efficiency of agricultural production is also a key issue. Unless you say, 'You're very kind, but we're not going to feed you.' That's why this world is complex.
How much of your business is water?
Basically, Veolia's business is one third water, one third waste, one third energy. The water third is a bit bigger than a third, the energy third is a bit smaller than a third, but it's really three very strong pillars. After that, I'd like to come to your different subjects to see the other two universes.
So to finish on this — mega-reservoirs, good or not good?
We're going to have to move to water storage. Mega-reservoirs are surface storage, but there are plenty of other things we do in several southern countries, notably using treated wastewater, or water that falls in winter to recharge aquifers. So in a way, the underground serves as a reservoir rather than putting it on the surface. The advantage is that it doesn't evaporate. Yes, but the advantage is that it doesn't evaporate. After that, it's not always possible, and there are restrictions that are sometimes more psychological — saying we're going to inject water into an aquifer. There are places where it's complicated to get people to accept that.
That's the very purpose of an aquifer.
That's the purpose of an aquifer. But usually, we let nature do it, and here we accelerate and help nature a bit — because you're right, it rains, it seeps into aquifers. Except that here, we accelerate this natural cycle by reinjecting it more quickly.
Maybe there's the filtering process missing, then, if we...
Ah, no, because we're reinjecting water that has been filtered through specific processes.
To come to waste and energy — I didn't really know what you do in energy, but waste — the essential part of waste is going to be as much garbage trucks as hyper-complex waste, as you said, in the United States.
Yes, exactly. Anyway, Veolia in general — basically half of our clients are cities acting on behalf of their inhabitants. The other half are industrial clients. And so we think about them less often, but our clients are as much the big names in microelectronics, the big names in pharmaceuticals, or mines, as I said earlier, as the city behind your house.
So waste is really a separate business in many countries. I have Corsican origins, so I stay in France. But if you take me to waste in Corsica, which is an issue in itself — can you do waste there?
We do water in Corsica. The thing is that Corsica is an island, and it doesn't have a huge winter population, so that doesn't necessarily justify enough equipment. So a certain number of things have to go by boat to the mainland. It's actually a fairly physical issue, like all islands.
Actually, I didn't necessarily want to come back to Corsica, but I was going to tell you — at a higher level, there are countries where you can't do waste. It's too... it's too mafia-run, no?
Ah, yes, but in fact, we're in 45 countries with Veolia. Very often, people tell me, 'But why aren't you here, there, or there?' I'll be precise. And the answer — we're not in Italy in waste, but we're in Italy in energy, and there's no corruption problem in our activities. You're absolutely right. One of the criteria on which I make no exceptions is obviously the fact that we are 100% compliant with all international and national legislation. So if doing business means doing things that would be in gray areas, we'd rather not do them. There you go, so you're right. But not just Italy, by the way.
About ten years ago, a former prefect told me — because in a family thing over there, we were going to do biomass in Corsica — he looked at me and said, 'I was prefect in Corsica in such-and-such year. Let me explain something to you: south of Lyon, you don't want to touch waste.' And I said, 'OK, I understand.' And I'm sure he was 100% right. That was 10 years ago. There's still mafia in France. Are there places where you can't touch waste in France?
The question doesn't arise like that. There aren't no-go areas. We're a democratic and republican country. There aren't places where you say, 'I won't go there because really what you said earlier, I should still go.' In France, no. In France, no. But on the other hand — no, really on the other hand — we train all our employees so that if ever someone was tempted to do something contrary to everything we say, they have the right reflex and don't do it. There you go. That's more or less how I see it. In France, we don't have a particular issue on that. After that, well, we set our conditions, and sometimes we don't do business, and too bad. I mean, I'm not going to start making exceptions on that.
So, waste — to come back to that — waste is what we see and what we don't see. Even classic waste, the bin behind your house. What we generally see is the garbage truck. But then, what happens behind? To put it simply, our job is... Ah, I'd be delighted to invite you to visit a sorting center — it's quite amazing. What happens to the yellow bin, the yellow-lidded bin? Basically, it's recycled and put back into production loops — that is, plastic, paper, cardboard, all that ends up in a plant that reproduces plastic, paper, cardboard. But it's a bit of work because you can imagine, it's all mixed up in your bin. So you have to separate it behind. So we see waste as a resource.
That is, our goal is that from your bins we get as much energy and as many raw materials as possible. And what remains — because there are things we can't do anything with — we turn into energy. So everything that's recyclable, we recycle, and everything that's not recyclable or can't be done in acceptable conditions, we produce energy from it. And that energy allows us to heat your home — for urban heating networks — or electricity that we reinject into the grid. So for me, waste is a source of raw materials and energy, and even compost, and that's how we see it. So our goal in the end is that as little as possible ends up in landfill, and as much as possible is recycled, and otherwise turned into energy.
So your output, finally — that's also why it's interesting to be in energy at the end of your treatment plants — I don't know what you call them — you'll have one part that goes to... you resell the raw materials, between quotes, plastic, and another part that you sell. We have Veolia revenue where we sell recycled paper to paper mills, we sell plastic to make plastic bottles, and so on.
Yes, exactly. And then the other part, we sell energy — we sell kilowatts or thermal kilowatts, that is, what allows heating.
You essentially produce energy that comes from your waste.
No, we produce it directly. That's why, from that point of view — you made me describe it rightly, obviously we do water, we do waste, we do energy, but at Veolia we also do lots of things that are combinations of all that. Combining all that — it's basically about 30% of the group where I couldn't tell you if it's water, waste, or energy, because it's a bit of all of it.
And so the energy produced from waste — do I count it as waste or as energy? Honestly, I don't care. Honestly, I don't care. The goal is to make something, and so to make a resource from waste. The advantage of this energy we produce from waste is that it's renewable because it's sources — it's not, I don't know, oil or gas sources. So that's great. So it's waste biomass. There are two, perhaps — it's considered biomass. So overall, it's rather virtuous from an environmental point of view.
But I'd say that's not the only argument, and it seems important to me — when I heat your house, so I offer you heat from, let's say, a plant that produces this heat from non-recyclable waste, I'm able to guarantee you the price of this energy for the next 10 years. So whether the D3 in Ormoy is closed or open, or there's a war in Ukraine, your bill will be exactly fixed — there's no supply issue. That's why this local energy source is renewable, but it's also very reliable, including in terms of price. And I can tell you that has an absolutely gigantic appeal — not having to worry that suddenly your bill will explode or shrink depending on the world's upheavals. And we can see that in recent years, the world's upheavals have a small tendency to multiply. And so that's a fairly major issue for me.
Today, the entirety of your energy production comes from waste. You don't do energy, you don't do nuclear, you're not a producer of raw energy, like the energy companies you might think of. So you produce energy from waste, from wastewater, from non-recyclable things — so from what others don't want.
No, we also produce energy from what we call industrial waste heat, because industries often need energy in their processes, and at the end there are calories left over that end up heating the little birds. Well, we recover it to power things. So there too, we're on energy recycling, in a way. We also have another business, which is urban heating networks, which are very present, I'd say, in Poland, in the Czech Republic, across much of Europe, which are developing strongly in France. It's basically saying that individual heating is one thing, but a heating network across your whole city or neighborhood allows you to be much more efficient, cost less, and have a lower carbon footprint. And so we're developing these networks a lot, and in France we have what it takes.
We talk about heat, but we also know how to make cold — and God knows with the heat waves there were in June and July, we also make cold networks and urban cold. And at Saclay — at Saclay, yes — at Saclay we do something ultra-innovative where we make a kind of network that's actually like a reversible natural collective air conditioner. I'd say reversible because it produces cold in summer but produces heat in winter from the same energy source, which is actually an aquifer at 600 meters depth that has the beauty of being at exactly the same temperature all year. So whether it's 45 degrees outside or 10, it will always be the same temperature. So that means that in summer we cool a bit more — so we boost the cooling. In winter, we boost the calories to warm up. So we consume a little energy to boost what I just told you — boosting nature — but much less than if we were doing individual air conditioners or individual heating. And so that's part of the innovative solutions, quite amazing.
But I discovered that — maybe it's not with you — it's called Fraîcheur de Paris.
Yes, that's not with us, but at Saclay it's even more innovative. That's done from the Seine — Fraîcheur de Paris. Here, we do it from deep aquifers. But I didn't know at all before this summer when it was very hot — here we have air conditioners in addition that must not be great. I think they're air conditioners that run on water, actually. That must not be great.
So connect to it if there's a network nearby — connect to it. And so Fraîcheur de Paris or things like that that you offer. So I imagine at home we'll check on the website, and they can connect a building. That's it. You go with your co-ownership. If the network passes nearby, you connect the buildings to it, and then you end up with... you put in splits, it's like a normal air conditioner, you put them in the rooms, and at the end it ends up exactly the same way as what they call air conditioners, the outdoor units, that's it. Except that actually, it's as if we grouped all the air conditioners of a building in one place, but once again, it's not even with classic air conditioning — it's done by using nature. So on top of that, it's very virtuous.
OK. That's crazy because indeed we see air conditioning as...
And we've identified about a hundred sites in France where we could do exactly the same thing as what we do at Saclay.
Interesting. So it's not reserved for a few specific cases.
