The Sustainable Force

Lisa McIlvenna, Deputy Managing Director, BITC NI presenting the CORE responsible business accreditation to Sinead Patton, Regional Director, Veolia NI

A global leader in providing sustainable solutions for businesses across a multitude of sectors, Veolia, is driving forward how our manufacturing sector, and beyond, gears up for Net Zero emissions. The company’s Northern Ireland team talks to Emma Deighan.

Veolia is an international environmental services company with its roots in France. It employs 178,000 people around the globe, 15,000 of which are based in the UK and Ireland.

Here in Northern Ireland its team of 150 are on site at some of the most prominent manufacturing bases, figuring out, realising and executing solutions that ensure the client is at the top of their game when it comes to lowering their carbon footprint and embedding long-term sustainability into their business.

Among those businesses are some of NI’s best-known food and drink producers, manufacturers and public sector names. Veolia provides the latter clients with flexible solutions to water, waste and energy that can help them respond to market changes in an efficient, cost-effective and compliant way. It also brings a mix of tried and tested technologies and innovative thinking to deliver those solutions. What we do is look at all aspects of what the client does to help their environmental footprint. In Northern Ireland, specifically, we generally work with manufacturing businesses on site where our expertise covers engineering needs,” Donald Walker, Business Development Manager, begins.

The company has a number of employees in fixed roles around sites in NI, including NI Water locations.

While on site, Veolia often takes full control of the technical side of operations, leaving businesses to focus on their core offering.

Niall Diamond, Site Manager, FM Contracts explains: “We work in partnership with key manufacturing clients, through an outsourcing arrangement. This means a business outsources its site utilities that support the production environment. We then provide, operate and maintain a service for that area of the business, effectively taking ownership of that plant by being onsite, permanently.” It’s very much a partner-integrated setup, Niall says, with Veolia’s main job to “deal with the noise” affording time and space for our customers to focus on what drives their turnover.

It’s a unique service too, an emerging and sophisticated one, that is set to ramp up here as the Executive prepares to secure NI-specific climate legislation following a consultation on two bills which went before the Assembly recently.

Niall says beyond the sustainability element, Veolia’s partnership with clients also yields financial returns. It means investing in sound environmentally friendly practices will pay dividends in the long term.

“What businesses found prior to operating this model with Veolia is that services in plant rooms often received minimal attention and, over the years, this plant and equipment are no longer in prime condition and there are cost savings to be made by upgrading them and managing them efficiently.” The company, which has had a presence in Northern Ireland since the 1990s, has welcomed a boost in business, thanks to increasing talks around Net Zero 2050 and last year’s COP26. It says conversations with new clients are underway and plentiful.

Donald adds: “Every organisation now is identifying their role in the drive to Net Zero. We’re seeing a lot of conversations happening, a lot of initial conversations with new clients around that piece and that’s because it’s a big part of our expertise. We identify roadmaps for clients, and projects as they go along that route.”

He says the business’ global reach and specialisms in waste management and water services also allows it to expand its offering to accommodate any client, no matter their sector and size.

Veolia’s relationship with NI Water, for which it treats 20% of the country’s wastewater, is another huge area of its work here. It also operates and maintains the wastewater Sludge Disposal Service at Belfast’s Duncrue Street incinerator, which treats all of Northern Ireland’s wastewater treatment works sludges. Nick O’Hara, Operations Manager, Municipal Wastewater, points out that this work is very important in terms of protecting Northern Ireland’s rivers and loughs.

“The work we do protects the water in Lough Neagh and ensures that the water in Strangford Lough meets the Shellfish Directive.” Donald, says every business here needs to pay attention to its carbon output and the sooner the better.

“Being green used to be something that was nice to do but today it’s a necessity. If you’re a business that procures Government contracts, you’re going to need to illustrate how you’re driving your carbon reduction.

“Your customer base is also driving requirements and your carbon emissions are also part of someone else’s Scope Three emissions and that’s a never-ending cycle.

“We help by putting businesses through a process, gathering their data, analysing it and then coming up with carbon reduction initiatives which we can then supply to the client.”

He says the company begins with “the low hanging fruit projects first, and then we get more granular, fine-tuning the process.”

Among Veolia’s more unique global solutions to carbon saving for businesses is its work with Netherland’s coffee producer, Douwe Egberts Master Blenders. The company partnered with Veolia to reduce its gas usage, the result of which has seen

it convert 33,000 tonnes of spent coffee beans — the residue left after the brewing process — into an energy source every year. The result is a 14,000 tonne reduction in CO2 output annually.

The company is also working on carbon capture technology, which allows carbon dioxide to be extracted from emissions and then compressed and/or liquified. It can then either be used in industrial applications or can be pumped into underground stores, such as those under the North Sea. This helps to reduce the amount of CO2 released into the environment and promotes a carbon circular economy.

Donald says Veolia’s role in the drive to net zero and boosting circular economies within businesses will be prominent here and globally, thanks to its bespoke tech, global reach and world firsts.

He adds: “Our job is to make sure that our customers keep going and that they can concentrate on their product. We take away a level risk and they don’t have to worry about what’s happening in the boiler room.

“There will be an increasing focus on our carbon output and businesses know that this is not a single-project solution they can use quickly. This is a five to 10-year plan. It’s a process to make your whole business sustainable and not because it’s a good thing to do, it’s the right thing to do for the business and the broader society. It’s your environmental social return.”

“Being green used to be something that was nice to do but today it’s a necessity. If you’re a business that procures Government contracts, you’re going to need to illustrate how you’re driving your carbon reduction.”

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