Estelle Brachlianoff has a smile. A gray sky peaks behind the windows of this Manhattan tower where the general director of Veolia came to present, Thursday, April 18, her new strategy in the United States, but the manager sees far: “This country is demanding more Veolia “. Water treatment, hazardous waste, energy production: the French group has become a juggernaut in environmental services since its acquisition of part of the activities of its rival Suez in 2022.
This takeover bid notably allowed Veolia to grow in the United States: between 2019 and 2023, the group more than doubled its turnover there. Last year, it reached 5.4 billion euros, or 11% of its overall income. Today, Veolia is the leading private operator in water services across the Atlantic. The company has 12,000 employees and operates around a hundred industrial sites. “The merger with Suez made us change scale,” underlines the general director.
Unprecedented development potential
Due to massive American investments in the name of sovereignty, and the attention paid to issues of pollution and access to water, Estelle Brachlianoff even sees in the United States unprecedented development potential for her activities. “Today, the United States is one of the fastest growing markets for environmental services. Strategic reindustrialization, water scarcity, public health are all priorities that drive growth demand”.
Dollars from the Biden administration are raining down: 135 billion for decarbonization, 380 billion for depollution, 370 billion to initiate the energy transition… The group has therefore also come to the United States to seek funding which it cannot find in Europe.
The Biden administration’s $200 billion pledge to build semiconductor factories also offers opportunities. Because these micro-components require perfectly pure water to be made, an area in which Veolia intends to highlight its know-how. The group has already won a contract to supply 21 ultra-pure water analyzers to a new electronic chip factory that has emerged in Arizona.
The group is on all counts
But “reshoring”, named after the American industrial sovereignty strategy, also concerns strategic metals, lithium in the lead. Mining projects are multiplying to supply the battery needs of electric cars. Veolia has sniffed out the matter: “You have to realize that to extract a ton of lithium, a million liters of water is necessary,” recalls Estelle Brachlianoff.
Identify and repair networks that are sometimes century-old and often obsolete. Deploy industrial water reuse solutions. The group is on hand to meet needs. Because on a global scale, its ambition is high: to double its turnover by 2030. The company also intends to ride on the underlying trends in American society, and in particular the increasingly strong demand for quality water, without pollutants. In just a few years, the subject of PFAS pollution, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, described as “eternal pollutants” due to their persistence in the environment, has become established in public opinion.
It is now the regulations which set the pace: on April 10, the American Environment Agency defined, for the first time, threshold limits in running water for PFAS which must be respected within five years. A major challenge, but above all an economic opportunity, we judge at Veolia. A report from December 2023 estimated the decontamination market across the Atlantic at $200 billion.
“We have been anticipating the enhancement of these regulations for five years, we have a lot of technical skills, and a detailed knowledge of the problem,” assures Karine Rougé, the general director in charge of water within the North America branch of the company. A few months before an American election that attracts all attention, Estelle Brachlianoff is keeping her focus on business: the political color of the White House will have no influence for Veolia.
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