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At the Zero Carbon Forum, Veolia reaffirms its commitment to building a greentech ecosystem

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Five years on from COP21, the City of Paris and the daily newspaper La Tribune organized the Zero Carbon Forum. This special event, held digitally on December 10 and 11, brought together mayors from all over the world, experts, NGOs and companies to find concrete solutions to the global challenge of preserving our planet.
 

As a key player in ecological transformation, Veolia was present at the Forum, notably through two presentations: Claire Falzone, Veolia's Director of Innovation, gave a presentation at the round table "Building a Greentech Ecosystem". And Frédéric Van Heems, Chief Executive Officer of the Water business in France, presented the 2020 "digital prize" to the Mayor of Toulouse.   

 

“Veolia has role as a greentech solutions broker”

Developing a greentech ecosystem is essential in accelerating ecological transformation. Claire Falzone spoke about Veolia's role in developing this ecosystem.

Veolia has a special role to play because we have been operating in the environmental field for the past 170 years. For decades we have been working with our customers to improve the environment in the fields of water, energy and waste, and at Veolia, innovation is by its very nature a partnership.
Our innovations originate in the field, or have to adapt to it, because environmental challenges are different in Asia, Africa and Europe. Our customers expect us to deliver visible results, a concrete improvement in their environmental performance, and the quality of life of their residents when it comes to cities. It is this role as an innovative solutions broker, wherever we operate, that we bring to the greentech ecosystem.
Claire Falzone
Veolia's Director of Innovation
Finally, our goal is to bring our customers the best technologies available. So our role is also to identify and support start-ups: we are an operational partner serving as a springboard for them to choose the best technology for each specific situation. Our role is not to own all these technologies but to support their development by partnering these start-ups.
Claire Falzone

Veolia's 180,000 employees in 45 countries are accustomed to open innovation in startup ecosystems and in our incubators in India, Asia and elsewhere. They share and disseminate these technologies throughout the Group. Veolia also organizes hackathons to identify the best solutions.

Veolia develops six major areas of innovation: climate change adaptation; new decarbonated energy services such as bioconversion; indoor air quality using energy-efficient and sustainable air purifiers; carbon capture by seeking to reuse it without polluting; and of course, artificial intelligence, particularly in the field of energy savings where it has a major role to play.
Claire Falzone

Cities Award: Toulouse, the "digital award" winner

During the "Cities Awards", which recognizes winning and flagship projects in tomorrow’s cities. Frédéric Van Heems presented the digital award to Jean-Luc Moudenc, Mayor of Toulouse.

And as far as digital technology is concerned, techniques are changing very quickly in Veolia's businesses: digital technology makes it possible to put the right information in the right place at the right time, to manage environmental services and interact with the public, who are becoming "consumer-players" in urban services,
Frédéric Van Heems
Chief Executive Officer of the Water business in France

The digital solutions of the city of Toulouse:

Toulouse has developed a smartphone application that makes life easier for its residents (online procedures, cultural agenda, news, services, public transport, canteen menus, social networks, etc.). A Wi-Fi network is available free of charge in the city. ANITI (Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute) has joined the French interdisciplinary artificial intelligence network. The "Toulouse Métropole Data" data portal is open to everyone. And the interactive map UrbanHist offers the opportunity to discover Toulouse's heritage.