Analysis of Veolia's Sustainability Measures and ISO 14001

This report delves into Veolia's sustainability practices, examining its corporate governance and adherence to ISO 14001:2015 standards. The analysis covers key aspects such as employee health and safety, environmental performance, and leadership's role in fostering eco-friendly measures. The report highlights Veolia's commitment to reducing accidents, improving waste management, and enhancing environmental performance through various initiatives. It assesses Veolia's progress toward sustainable development goals, emphasizing its efforts in waste collection, energy usage, and the integration of environmental solutions. The report concludes that Veolia effectively maintains sustainability through its practices, supported by data and evaluations, demonstrating a genuine approach to environmental responsibility and compliance with ISO 14001 standards. It references various sources, including Veolia's official website and sustainability reports, to support its findings.

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Veolia Environment S.A., or Veolia in brief is a French transnational company with the
major business operations in three main services like water management, waste management and
energy services. There are more than 40 countries across the world where Veolia operates with a
revenue generation of €24,390 billion. The current Chairman and CEO of the company is
Antoine Frerot. However, it is important to analyse the importance of the sustainability measures
that Veolia is focusing. Therefore, this report is going to analyse the corporate governance and
sustainability report of Veolia to understand whether the company is following ISO 14001:2015
or not.
As far as ISO 14001:2015 is concerned, it can be stated that this specific guidelines is
associated with an environmental management system that an organisation can opt for setting up
its environmental performance. It can be stated that the ISO 14001:2015 is suitable for every
business organisation irrespective of its size and the industry of operation (iso.org 2019). The
purpose of ISO 14001:2015 is to create proper analysis of the environmental responsibility of the
organisation by managing and contributing to the environmental pillar of sustainability. In this
regard, there are some key perspectives on which ISO 14001:2015 relies such as the values for
environment, interested parties of the organisation, environmental policy of the organisation and
the environmental management system (iso.org 2019). In response to this, it is essential for the
respective business company to facilitate great emphasis on three approaches like the
enhancement of environmental performance, fulfilment of the compliance obligation and the
achieving the environmental objectives (Bini, Bellucci and Giunta 2918). All these measures are
considered to be the fundamental of attaining a strong and effective organisational responsibility
towards environment. Moreover, the fulfilment of ISO 14001:2015 will also help the company to
procure sustainability in business with the help of increasing its brand value and image.

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As far as the compliance is concerned, it can be stated that the role of the organisation is
to ensure safety and security of the employees so that they can feel highly motivated and
facilitating good performance. Moreover, the practice is also associated with the sustainable
development goals of the United Nations. Goal 3 of the sustainable development denotes good
health and wellbeing which is identified as one of the major factors of sustainability (Painter-
Morland et al. 2016). As a result of that it is essential for the business organisations to foster an
effective organisational framework for establishing good employee wellbeing program. For
Veolia, Employee health and safety is considered to be one of the major sustainability concern
where the organisation guaranteeing physical and psychological needs of its employees. In this
regard, the vision 2020 objectives of the organisation is ensuring safe and healthy environment
for the employee (Jia et al. 2015). The facts and data of Veolia is also corroborated the fact that
the organisation is on the way of success for establishing better employee health and safety
practice. For instance, in 2013 the frequency of accidents in Veolia was 11.02% whereas in 2017
the rate is decreased to 9.55% (Veolia.com 2019). Therefore, it justifies the efficacy of Veolia to
set its journey towards establishing an effective employee health and safety measure.
Besides this, enhancing the environmental performance is also referred as a crucial
practice for the business organisations to maintain the ISO 14001:2015 standard. It can be stated
that environmental sustainability is the key aspect for business companies to follow the standards
of the ISO 14001:2015. The basic principle of the standard guideline is that it is a must needed
practice that the companies are requested to follow in the form of taking responsibility in
ecological matters and design measures to stop any kind of environmental degradation (Rezaee
2018). The sustainable development goals of 13, 14 and 15 are directly associated with the
notion of maintaining better environmental stability. The United Nations also shares its concern

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regarding the responsibilities and importance of the business companies to pave the way for a
sustainable ecology. In response to this, Veolia is putting deep interests in preparing an
environmental friendly business orientation (Veolia.com 2019). Recycling products and
materials and care for the environmental stability, Veolia offers different solutions that are
adding value to resources and maximise the productivity in order to promote a strong eco-
friendly measure. In response to this, the report suggests that there are significant improvement
in the operational practice where Veolia is gradually increasing its waste collection and
facilitating a great deal of practice to reduce the wastage of products. For instance, in the waste
management practice the total collection of waste is growing at a steady pace where in 2011 it
was approximately 45,00,000 tonnes and in 2013 it increased to approximately 47,00,000 tonnes
(veolia.com 2019). On the other hand, the environment performance of Veolia is also improved
rapidly where in 2011 the company used 35, 00,000 kWh and in 2013 it escalated to 46, 00,000
kWh.
Furthermore, the leadership practice is also incorporated into good organisational practice
where Veolia is trying to harness its business objectives with the environment friendly measures.
From the official website of the organisation, it can be stated that there are serious impact that
the leadership of Veolia is trying to impose on its leadership in respect to environment sector
solutions. Most of this solutions are either in working phase or mitigated thoroughly (Veolia.com
2019). It shows that the ability of the organisation is highly attached with its objectives so that it
can create a balance between the expectation and real case scenario.
The above discussion is trying to find out the sustainability measures that Veolia is
practiced in order to maintain its reputation in the existing market. Based on the data and
evaluation I can say that Veolia is strongly maintains a good sustainability practice so that in

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terms of employee health and safety measures, the environmental performance and the efficacy
of the leadership to meet the organisational performance with the objectives. As a matter of fact,
the evaluations also points out the fact that it is a genuine approach for Veolia to maintain
sustainability in business. Therefore, it can be concluded that Veolia maintains a good
sustainability measures that is supported by its sustainability measures and facts.

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Reference
Bini, L., Bellucci, M. and Giunta, F., 2018. Integrating sustainability in business model
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iso.org 2019. ISO 14001:2015 Environmental management systems — Requirements with
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Jia, P., Govindan, K., Choi, T.M. and Rajendran, S., 2015. Supplier selection problems in
fashion business operations with sustainability considerations. Sustainability, 7(2), pp.1603-
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Painter-Morland, M., Sabet, E., Molthan-Hill, P., Goworek, H. and de Leeuw, S., 2016. Beyond
the curriculum: Integrating sustainability into business schools. Journal of Business
Ethics, 139(4), pp.737-754.
Rezaee, Z., 2018. Supply chain management and business sustainability synergy: A theoretical
and integrated perspective. Sustainability, 10(1), p.275.
veolia.com 2019. Corporate Social Responsibility. [online] Veolia. Available at:
https://www.veolia.com/en/veolia-group/profile/csr-performance [Accessed 17 Dec. 2019].
Veolia.com 2019. Sustainability report 2018. [online] Veolia.com. Available at:
https://www.veolia.com/sites/g/files/dvc2491/files/document/2019/04/Veolia-Integrated-Report-
2018.pdf [Accessed 17 Dec. 2019].