While new sustainable development goals are going to be discussed and adopted at the United Nations in September, the 2015 edition of International Day for biological diversity focused on the strong link between maintaining biodiversity and the sustainable development of our societies. Veolia reaffirmed its constant concern for the protection of ecosystems on this occasion.


Habitat degradation and biodiversity loss present a risk to the livelihoods of over one billion people in the world. The current decline in biodiversity is largely a result of human activity and represents a threat to human development. However, adopting a "sustainable" development mode means wanting to reconcile meeting our needs of today with those of future generations to leave them a viable and prosperous world.
This is why biodiversity is essential for sustainable development and human well-being and to preserve and protect it, we must implement sustainable management and use of resources. This is at the heart of Veolia's "resourcing the world" mission.

"Preserve and restore biodiversity" is one of Veolia's nine corporate social responsibility commitments. To help reconcile biodiversity and human development, Veolia is reducing the impact of its activities and those of its customers on nature and promotes the preservation and restoration of species and their habitats. To do this, the Company draws on the expertise of its design and engineering offices and uses mapping of ecological continuity, standard bio-indicators, fauna and flora inventories, city biodiversity actions and ecological engineering developed by its Research Center.


Veolia's roadmap for 2020 includes acting on all of its sites giving priority to those with high biodiversity issues, educating the greatest number and promoting projects developed in conjunction local stakeholders. Veolia has increased its participation in joint initiatives or partnerships since 2008, especially with the French committee of International Union for Nature Conservation, the National Natural History Museum and the National Botanical Conservatory in France, the Wildlife Trust England and the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union and the Biodiversity in Good Compagny in Germany.

These commitments are reflected in a number of projects:
  • Several Veolia sites have been certified for their good ecological management such as the incinerator at Dunkirk in France (Biodiversity in Progress label from the Dervenn Bureau Veritas), and those of CroftFarm and Pitsea England (Biodiversity Benchmark label from by the Wildlife Trust).
  • The Veolia Foundation contributes to the preservation of biodiversity by supporting 95 projects including the "Tara Expeditions" whose last mission studied the impact of plastic on the Mediterranean ecosystem.
  • To offset the carbon generated by its activities, Veolia implements reforestation projects in the countries in which it operates.
Veolia is involved in the "EVA" project conducted by the Institute for Research on Urban Sciences and Techniques which is studying solutions to control temperatures in cities such as moistening streets and revegetalization.

[3] Water, Vegetation, Albédo






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