Copyright ChangeInc
Veolia has appointed a new foreman to lead its “ecological transition. After more than two decades as COO, Jan Lenstra may lead Veolia’s waste, water and energy solutions. Change Inc. traveled by bus to Schiphol-Rijk to discuss the plans of the brand-new CEO.
Veolia is focusing on a three-part strategy that drives the energy transition, circular economy and sustainable food supply. There is global recognition for those three pillars: formally enshrined in the European Green Deal and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Veolia’s Dutch branch is primarily focused on the first two themes, but according to Lenstra, the organization is increasingly looking for solutions that cross markets. It is now working on a new strategic plan for the next four years.
Ecological transition
Veolia’s higher goal is to be at the helm of the “ecological transition,” it was decided at the 2019 shareholders’ meeting. What exactly is meant by that? The flat translation as Lenstra sees it is that companies should use as few new raw materials as possible. “By saving more and by reusing, we can make the transition possible,” he says.
Cooperation between recyclers and producers is very important in this, he recognizes. “Sometimes we as Veolia have to use our contacts to help a supplier, for example. We then look at what properties in the material they need so that they can still produce with recycled material. For example, maybe we can have a byproduct made at one of our plants.” It’s the kind of sleuthing Lenstra looks forward to.
Testing ground for innovation
One of the major projects Veolia is involved in is making the Kleefse Waard industrial park more sustainable. By 2025, this former AkzoNobel site should be the most sustainable business park in the Netherlands. Everything there used to run on natural gas, but Veolia has built a biomass power plant that provides steam, electricity and heat for both companies and district heating.
That is an intermediate step, Lenstra emphasizes. “We are now looking with startup RIFT whether we can upgrade iron powder with (green) hydrogen. That is then burned (in a boiler), releasing energy, and you could potentially use that to generate high-quality heat on a larger scale – one of the big challenges for industry.” Thus, Veolia approaches the industrial park as a “testing ground for innovation. It is also working on linking with solar and wind energy and experimenting with balancing supply and demand from all users at the industrial park.
Recycling is a core quality
Veolia is also busy with recycling, for example with customer Philips. In a factory, they crush the undersides of their vacuum cleaners into granules to make new undersides, made from 100 percent recyclate. So those parts are circular, Lenstra explains. “If you keep it clean, you can keep that going for quite a long time. I’m not saying infinitely, because it’s not, but for a long time.”
Another successful project is underway with Jacobs Douwe Egberts. At the coffee factory in Joure, Veolia runs a utility plant. Here, coffee grounds are used as fuel for the steam boiler. Biogas is produced from the water purification system. That biogas is then used again to produce steam and hot water for the various installations in the factory. The ongoing cooperation with the coffee producer nicely illustrates how important it is to stay in tune with your customers, Lenstra believes. “A number of modifications are needed each year to keep the process running as it is now. This is because depending on how efficiently they roast their beans, the coffee grounds get a different composition, calorific value and volume. If the grounds get smaller, you can’t get it back into the boiler. We worked with Jacobs Douwe Egbert to modify the process so that we still get that coffee grounds in to burn it.”
In the recycling business, cooperation is a requirement anyway, Lenstra knows: “I realize that we cannot do it alone. For example, plastic is much easier to recycle if you don’t mix it, so even if you have a bin full of polypropylene, don’t put polycarbonate caps or handles in there, because you have to pull that apart again. Although with PET bottles, you might want to do that differently. There you want to avoid color contamination from caps, and you can do that with plastic that is easily separated from PET. The more you can keep mono, the better it works. But sometimes just not. You do need expertise for that.”
Confidential destruction
Under Lenstra’s leadership, Veolia is moving toward an even broader recycling vision with very large and smaller solutions. Like with the recent acquisition of Recyfood, which provides recycling of organics and food. In this, packaging is high on the list. The general manager calls that market “de-packaging. “Suppose you want to smash bottles of rejected beer. Then we drain out the beer, you can take the glass separately as well as the cap – so you have those streams separately. We have to start investing in that. If we can get that right, it’s also scalable and we can make that location bigger and maybe market our own digester.”
Sometimes you can achieve big things with relatively small investments. “We are drawing up the business plan to see how we are going to invest, what the payback period is and where we can provide additional services in the market,” he says.
What business does Veolia have in the Netherlands?
Over the next three months, Veolia’s main focus will be on a new four-year strategic plan, not just in the Netherlands but globally. “I don’t think we will go 180 degrees in the other direction,” Lenstra begins, “but the acquisition of Suez has added a big piece of business. Last year there was 43 billion in revenue, so we have to strategically determine which market segments we are going to focus on. There will soon be a direction from the shareholders, and we get to flesh it out locally.” The first step with organic waste is a good example. Lenstra: “If that gets priority within the group, then we will have to start orienting ourselves: whether we want to start it ourselves or whether we want to make another targeted acquisition.”
What business does Veolia now have in the Netherlands? These are the kinds of questions that Lenstra has to deal with almost immediately. “We are a difficult business to understand. It’s hard to put a sticker on it, precisely because we have so many different activities. Basically, you can say that we do everything we can to help our customers drastically reduce their carbon footprint.”
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