Veolia Leads Resource Recovery and Decarbonisation Agenda in Australia by Securing First Integrated Waste Management Contract

Critically supporting the country’s national climate ambitions through ecological transformation

Veolia, the benchmark company for ecological transformation, has secured a new integrated waste management contract in Australia’s Gold Coast, the nation's sixth largest city. Veolia will be contracted for an initial 7 years with options to extend to 18 years, which would be around €500 million for the full extended term of the contract.

A first for the country, this new contract combines the management of recovery and collection facilities and will optimize design and implementation of existing infrastructures across the entire waste treatment value chain. This will allow the region to propel forward its resource recovery and decarbonisation targets at scale, creating new opportunities to impact Australia’s climate agenda.

As part of the new agreement, Veolia will operate 5 of the region’s essential resource recovery facilities, including 3 community waste and recycling centres, and 2 landfills, with an objective to substantially increase current recovery, commencing by initial 5% by 2025, representing an estimated additional 330,000 tonnes of household and organic waste. Veolia will enable the city to avoid more than 77,000 tonnes of carbon emissions, which is equivalent to removing more than 47,500 thermal cars from the road.

Waste management is one of the key ecological transformation opportunities in Australia as all of the country’s non-recyclable material currently goes to landfill. This contract critically aligns to the Australian Government’s ambitions to improve this by achieving an 80% recovery rate and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030.

The Gold Coast is a popular travel destination to more than 10 million visitors per year. However, now that the region is set to host a portion of the 2032 Olympics, the city is focused on taking additional steps to showcase its climate and carbon emissions agenda on a global stage. Veolia is strategically placed to support this ambition. 

Veolia's local team of 6,000 experts covering its three business lines (water, waste and energy management) will now be able to draw on an additional 100 employees in Gold Coast. This will enable the Group to apply the best of its expertise locally by supporting a municipal client on its path to carbon neutrality.  The Group is already a trusted partner in the Gold Coast, operating its desalination activities that treat 125 million litres of water every day, equivalent to 50 olympic swimming pools.

Richard Kirkman, CEO Veolia Australia and New Zealand said: “This contract underpins the strategic agenda of Australian customers. They’re choosing to engage one trusted provider for their ecological transformation needs, whilst also delivering best-in-class governance and accountability. With a growing environmental agenda, and a focus on improving the future, Veolia will play a significant role in supporting Australie, and the Gold Coast in particular, to improve its environmental performance while also decarbonising for the next generation. This is just the beginning of the journey for ecological transformation and will open further opportunities within the framework.”

Veolia Group aims to become the benchmark company for ecological transformation. Present on five continents with nearly 220,000 employees, the Group designs and deploys useful, practical solutions for the management of water, waste and energy that are contributing to a radical turnaround of the current situation. Through its three complementary activities, Veolia helps to develop access to resources, to preserve available resources and to renew them. In 2022, the Veolia group provided 111 million inhabitants with drinking water and 97 million with sanitation, produced 44 terawatt hours of energy and recovered 61 million tonnes of waste. Veolia Environnement (Paris Euronext: VIE) achieved consolidated revenue of 42 885 million euros in 2022. www.veolia.com