Veolia Environnement is not a household name in America. It should be.
The company specializes in water services, as well as waste management, energy, and transportation operations. According to Public Services International, a book called The Water Business by journalist Ann-Christin Sjölander looks at the privatization of water around the world. Today, Veolia and Suez-Ondeo, control 80% of the international private water market, with some 300 million customers. Protests have broken out in country after country – Bolivia, Argentina, Ghana, South Africa – and the water giants are switching to new markets in China, North America and Europe. Meanwhile well over a billion people still lack access to clean water supplies.
It’s About What You Do Not What You Say
Like many other major companies, Veolia has a code of conduct that suggests that the company does “the right thing.” On paper, the company looks like a responsible corporate citizen. It has a published code of conduct that includes provisions addressing human rights, the environment, health and safety, community investment and international labor standards. It has adopted the principles set forth in the U.N. Global Compact. Since 2004, Veolia Environnement has undertaken international campaigns with children, teachers and government agencies that support various initiatives. Campaigns have been launched in more than 30 countries, involving thousands of children.
However, in practice, things aren’t nearly as tidy.
As reported by Adri Nieuwhof of The Electronic Intifada in June 2008, Veolia has contracted to build a tramway on illegally seized Palestinian land that connects Israeli settlements on the West Bank, constructed in open violation of international law, with neighborhoods in West Jerusalem. Over the past two years, SNS Bank, ranked in the top-five of Dutch banks, received many letters from Israeli, Palestinian and Dutch organizations and international law experts calling for divestment from Veolia, because of the company’s involvement in the tramway project. Association Solidarite France Palestine and the Palestinian Liberation Organization have taken legal action in France against Veolia, but it appears that the company is not backing away from the project.
In an October 2007 article entitled “Water privateers reap ‘astronomical profits’”, Canadian Union CUPE reports on a study that says French water multinationals Veolia and Suez are making ‘astronomical profits’ in France – where they control much of the market – while delivering low-level services. The French consumers’ association Union Fédérale des consommateurs (UFC) has released a study showing the huge profit margins many French water corporations enjoy. The high water mark is in the community of Ile-de-France, where the private operator pockets a 58.7 per cent profit margin on citizens’ water payments, according to UFC. The association found a similar pattern of “explosive” profits in other cities with private water. In contrast, cities with public ownership and management, including the city of Grenoble, had profit margins in the range of 10 to 15 per cent. In 2000, Grenoble citizens won a long battle to bring water services back into public hands, ending a regime notorious for overpricing and corruption. The study, a follow-up to a 2006 survey of price structures, found that few water corporations had changed their profiteering ways. Only private operations in Angers and Nantes had dropped their profit margins. UFC calls some of the pricing practices “abusive.” The association is calling on municipal governments to bring water services back into public hands.
In October 2006, TSSA – the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association – a UK based union for people in transport and travel, stated that, “The track record of Veolia Environnement (formerly Connex) is not good. The French company was found guilty of breaking employment law in the UK, it lost its south eastern rail franchise, and is now accused of complicity in Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem.”
Access to a basic water requirement is a fundamental human right implicitly supported by international law, declarations, and State practice. Arguably, this right to water is even more basic and vital than some of the more explicit human rights already acknowledged by the international community, as can be seen by its recognition in many local customary laws, traditions or religious canon. With so much at risk for the world’s people, Veolia Environement’s role and influence over the lives of so many inhabitants cannot be ignored.
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