Veolia releases 2024 sustainability report

Boston-based Veolia North America has released its 2024 sustainability report, which highlights the waste management company’s regional performance on a range of environmental, social and governance goals as well as its work to help its customers meet their environmental goals.

“This is an exciting time to work at Veolia North America, as we report our progress on achieving our 2023 sustainability goals and embark on an even more ambitious journey toward the company’s 2024-2027 GreenUp strategy,” Veolia CEO Fred Van Heems says. “We are energized by our mission to help our customers and society progress toward a more sustainable future.”

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According to the report, in 2023 the company reduced its customers’ Scope 4 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 430,000 tons, processed 237 billion gallons of drinking water, treated 368 billion gallons of wastewater and processed 1.8 million tons of hazardous waste.

Veolia reports that it treated a cumulative 2.1 billion gallons of drinking water for regulated per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) last year, reaching no detectable levels of regulated PFAS chemicals at 30 U.S. sites, and met its target for implementing biodiversity programs at 10 priority sites in the U.S.

In the report, the company sets its Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions baseline for the region and outlines its decarbonization roadmap. Companies and governments face a decarbonization dilemma as stakeholders and the public demand climate action and faster progress toward a low-carbon economy, Veolia says, and while organizations have committed to ambitious GHG reduction targets, competing priorities and practical challenged make it difficult for organizations to advance their emissions reduction targets.

In response, the company has announced a new GreenUp strategy to guide the company’s decarbonization progress in the years ahead. The program is designed to accelerate the company’s efforts to optimize resource use and address the impacts of climate change and focuses on three major contributions to customer performance:

• Decarbonize: eliminate 18 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2027
• Depollute: treat 10 metric tons of hazardous waste and pollutants in 2027
• Regenerate: save 400 billion gallons of fresh water in 2027.

“As part of the world’s leading environmental services company, we support sustainable development for cities and industries, while addressing the greatest environmental and social challenges of our time,” says Dave Ross, chief sustainability officer of Veolia. “In this year’s report we took a material leap forward in reporting our performance across five multifaceted performance categories. We made this conscious choice to give our stakeholders a more holistic view of our progress in the areas of people, planet and principles to align with the Veolia Group’s global reporting.”