SUEZ presentation

SUEZ:

Suez is a French group, it is one of the world leaders in the field of water and waste management. The group is present on 5 continents, with over 88,576 employees to provide local authorities, industrialists, consumers and farmers with sustainable solutions for efficient resource management. It is a human adventure that has lasted more than 120 years and continues to be written every day.

The group is present in nearly 70 countries and had a turnover of 15.3 billion euros in 2016, of which 30.8% or 4.71 billion euros was generated in Europe that is therefore the continent with the largest market share for the company.

The Group's Head Office is located at 16, place de L'Iris Paris, France. The company spends 74 million euros on research and development with the aim of moving towards a circular economy. Indeed, for the group the linear model (extract, produce, consume) has come to an end. The company intends to focus on recycling and resource recovery such as material recovery, water recovery and energy recovery. With this in mind, the company has, for example, acquired JI Water, a company with 7,500 new employees whose objective is to recycle industrial water using new technologies.

The history of the group began 160 years ago in 1869, when Suez became the name of a canal. A project launched in 1858 by Ferdinand de Lesseps, who mobilized the best engineers of the time for 11 years. He then had the mad ambition to link East and West by opening a 160-kilometer canal between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.

At the end of the 19th century, with the industrial revolution, the pace of history accelerated and the world became urbanized, and water, this primary and essential resource, became a public health issue. In just a few years, it was necessary to invent professions that did not exist. Alongside the cities, Suez will play a major role in the evolution of public health. Engineers are innovating in water catchment and distribution, managing to build water supply and sanitation networks over immense distances. From 1880, large cities developed their first water and sanitation networks thanks to this sanitary revolution, many epidemics were avoided.

At the beginning of the 20th century, household waste became the other public health issue. In Paris, Suez invented the first garbage dumpster and set up waste collection with nearly 300 motorized vehicles.

The post-war period saw, with the development of western metropolises, an improvement in the organisation and equipment of cities. It was necessary to sustainably manage gigantic megapolis and accompany the growth of the suburbs; it was no longer a question of bringing water into the city but of guaranteeing its sanitary quality and coping with the explosion in consumption while fighting against waste. In the middle of the 20th century, the challenges that had arisen in the countries of the North were posed in the countries of the South (1948, the first drinking water plant in Egypt).

At the dawn of the 21st century, a new chapter opened at the Earth Summit in Rio where leaders made the preservation of the planet a priority. Suez embarked on a new revolution, which was the resource revolution. Nowadays 74 million euros are devoted to research and innovation to develop and secure resources.

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