Water Company of the Year
Veolia
What is it?
A global water, waste and energy services provider committed to resourcing the world through creating shared value with its municipal and industrial clients.
What has it done?
After four years of turmoil, Veolia staged a dramatic return to form in 2015 as a leaner, more focused and dramatically effective water company, with its share price gaining 50% over the course of the year.
What makes it special?
In 2015, Veolia changed the basis of its engagement with clients by introducing the concept of “co-construction”, inventing new models of collaboration, seeking out areas of complementary expertise, and activating new partnerships with fund providers, civil society, local bodies, and clients. This new approach found success in a variety of creative new alliances with partners including food company Danone, IT specialist IBM, insurer Swiss Re, and social business networks Ashoka and Antropia.
The restructuring of the group to create One Veolia has created a lower-cost organisation, more tightly co-ordinated to deliver value to its clients. On the water side of the business, this has led to contract successes including the $275 million contract to design, build and operate a flowback and produced water treatment plant for Antero Resources in West Virginia, and a €445 million delegated water services contract in Lille, France.
Veolia has comprehensively defined what it means to be the world’s leading private water company. It has re-established its credentials as an efficient operator, while repositioning its offering to meet the aspirations of its municipal and industrial clients. Most importantly, it has moved its position at the table from sitting opposite the client in a zero-sum game to sitting next to them, working together to develop brilliant new solutions to some of the world’s toughest environmental challenges.
Distinction
Biwater
What is it?
A UK-based contractor and operator of water and wastewater treatment plants. Its US arm, Biwater Inc., supplies reverse osmosis systems.
What has it done?
2015 was a transformational year for Biwater. The shrewd sale of its desalination concession in the British Virgin Islands helped to restore the company’s financial strength, while the elimination of balance sheet debt and a much-reduced bonding position bolstered the group’s ability to go out and do what it does best – engineer unique deals with maximum impact in challenging jurisdictions.
What makes it special?
Biwater took its ability to put winning propositions in front of credit-challenged governments to a whole new level in 2015, securing a $1.2 billion deal with the Kurdistan government to supply more than 1 million m³/d of urgently needed water and wastewater treatment infrastructure to a population under increasing strain from an influx of refugees.
In the US, Biwater has built up one of the largest reference bases of installed reverse osmosis capacity in the business. Severe water shortages in California and Texas helped it secure a string of contract wins last year, as it increasingly becomes the supplier of choice.
Biwater’s export finance connections and in-house negotiating skills have enabled it to carve out a unique role as a deal broker, bringing bespoke financial, engineering, technical, and operational solutions to bear where they are most needed in the world. No other water company active today is as willing to engage where it really matters.
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