The development of water and wastewater services is central to the three major issues of the 21st century:

  • satisfying the increased requirements caused by demographic change, while preserving water resources
  • attenuating the explosion of urban development and industrialisation by limiting the impact of water and wastewater services on the environment
  • protecting biodiversity.

Our capacity to simultaneously reply to all of these issues conditions how we convert to sustainable service models: our partners (local authorities and industries) want us to be a source of proposals to help them quickly and sustainably reduce their environmental footprint.

Our conviction: the conversion towards sustainable models involves switching from a volume-based economy to a value-based economy: our objective is to allow our customers "to produce more with less", i.e. to maintain the same level of service by integrating objectives in terms of environmental performance in 3 major areas: reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GGE), safeguarding water resources, and protecting biodiversity.

From Mexico City to Istanbul: how have research and innovation been effectively used to develop new sustainable models?

By building a structured R&D network to address environmental issues across the board:

  • With the in-house R+i Alliance initiative, in order to pool research capacities on joint strategic programmes undertaken by the main subsidiaries of SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT
  • By reinforcing our network of international partners outside the company: SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT works with more than 270 scientific organisations all around the world and has set up 120 scientific partnerships, including more than 70% with organisations of international renown.


By creating the Edelway label, which combines safeguarding natural resources, protecting biodiversity and reducing greenhouse gases, by for example:

  • designing desalination plants that are more sustainable, by using renewable energies, energy recovery, and brine disposal systems that have no impact on biodiversity. This is especially the case of the desalination plant in Perth, Australia or that of El Atabal in Spain.
  • introducing membrane solutions to wastewater treatment in order to safeguard biodiversity, such as at the Grasse wastewater treatment plant.
  • developing new technological solutions for real-time identification of leaks on drinking water supply networks (AVIZ’EAU®)
  • transforming wastewater treatment systems into environmental platforms (Green Cubes), and sources of energy, such as at the As Samra plant in Jordan, which combines turbining and sludge digestion in order to become energy self-sufficient, or with the Degrés Bleus solution, which recovers heat calories from drainage systems in order to heat buildings.


The questions we wish to discuss during the WWF5: speak up!

  • In relation to climate change: what are the priorities for water services?
  • How can we make the carbon footprint of services and facilities a key criterion in selecting models?
  • How can we reconcile the principle of precaution in public health and the greater use of wastewater? In a closed cycle system, how can we guarantee the health and safety of water?
  • How can we safeguard subsoil water resources, our principal legacy for future generations? How can we raise the issue of water quality at least to the same level as that of water stress?
  • Is the development of non-conventional water resources (the reuse of wastewater, the recovery of rain water) genuinely sustainable, in particular when water resources are abundant and treatment processes necessarily issue greenhouse gases?
  • Is the financial crisis a risk or an opportunity for the development of sustainable models? What is the place for these new models in stimulus plans?