Join us as Patrick Schultz, President and CEO of Sustainable Industries and Buildings at Veolia North America, reveals how Veolia leads the way in clean technology.

Discover their innovative solutions in Energy Management, Water Management, and Waste Management that help companies achieve Sustainable Solutions and the future of sustainable infrastructure.

Don’t miss this deep dive into the powerhouse of Cleantech!

🕑 Chapters:
━━━━━━

➜ 00:00 Intro

➜ 00:48 Patrick's Journey

➜ 02:28 Veolia's Legacy

➜ 04:37 Waste-Energy Link

➜ 05:54 Supporting Communities

➜ 07:58 ESG Success Story

➜ 10:23 Tech Innovations

➜ 14:56 Veolia's Sustainability Goals

➜ 16:24 Explaining Complex Tech

➜ 19:50 Marketing Challenges

➜ 22:00 Building Partnerships

➜ 25:16 Collaboration Wins

➜ 26:30 Join the Movement

🎧 Listen or watch the episode

👤 Interview with Patrick Schultz

Dunya Jovanovic: Hi Patrick, and welcome to the Green New Perspective Podcast. To start, please tell me and our audience about yourself and your role at Veolia North America.

Patrick Schultz: I'm Patrick Schultz, the CEO of Veolia's Sustainable Industries and Buildings business in the U.S. I'll give a bit of background: I grew up in a small town in the Black Forest of Southwest Germany, surrounded by nature. This early connection to nature sparked my passion for sustainability and environmental protection, which guided my career choice in the environmental field. I studied environmental engineering in Germany and moved to the U.S. over twenty years ago for graduate school. I spent five years in academia studying climate change and ocean ecosystems before shifting to consulting. Thirteen years ago, I joined Veolia in our municipal water business and have held various roles since. I lead our industrial and commercial water and energy business in the U.S.

DJ: Could you tell us a bit more about Veolia?

PS: Veolia is a French company and the largest environmental services company in the world. We were founded 170 years ago as the first public-private partnership to address water and health crises in French cities. Today, we are a $48 billion company with over 200,000 employees. We supply drinking water to over 100 million people and treat wastewater for almost as many worldwide.

DJ: What are the main challenges Veolia North America is addressing?

PS: In the U.S., we're a $5.5 billion business and the largest private municipal water company. We also rank in the top three for hazardous waste management. My unit, Sustainable Industries, and Buildings, operates utilities and infrastructure at over 100 industrial sites and commercial buildings across various markets like oil and gas, chemicals, food and beverage processing, manufacturing, and state and local governments. We help companies produce goods and services profitably while reducing their environmental impact. This includes reducing energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, waste production, and increasing recycling rates.

DJ: Can you explain the relationship between wastewater and energy?

PS: We often talk about the energy-water nexus in our industry. This concept arises because energy and water are interconnected, though traditionally treated as separate entities. Our solutions aim to create economic value while preserving limited resources like water and energy. We formed the Sustainable Industries and Buildings business unit to provide comprehensive solutions that address these interconnected challenges.

DJ: How do you help companies address these interconnected issues across facilities and communities?

PS: Our solutions typically focus on efficiency—doing more with less—and circularity—getting more value from resources by recycling. For example, data centers, which need renewable energy and cooling water, present a challenge in dry, sunny states like Texas. Similarly, green hydrogen production requires large amounts of treated water. We help developers source and treat this water, enabling both energy production and environmental sustainability.

DJ: Can you share a specific client story where you helped achieve sustainability goals?

PS: One example is an oil company in Central California. For every barrel of oil produced, 15-20 barrels of highly contaminated water were also produced. Using our Opus treatment process, we treat this water so that some can be reused for oil production, and more than half can be safely discharged into the environment. This treated water supports an artificial wetland, benefiting biodiversity and recharging the local aquifer, which is crucial in drought-stricken areas.

DJ: What technologies and strategies did you use in this project?

PS: We combined various treatment technologies, including membrane-based technologies like reverse osmosis, to treat the water to the necessary purity. These processes are energy-intensive, so in other projects, such as in the Middle East, we pair desalination with large solar installations to provide the needed energy sustainably. This approach is becoming more common in the U.S. as well.

DJ: What is Veolia's long-term vision for sustainable infrastructure over the next 5-10 years?

PS: We're in a promising period for companies like Veolia. Factors like the reindustrialization of the U.S., federal programs like the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act drive industrial production and sustainable infrastructure investments. More companies are committed to reducing their environmental impact, which includes not just carbon reduction but also waste reduction and water resource management. Our goal is to double our business in the U.S. by 2030.

DJ: How does Veolia adjust its brand strategy to address sustainability and help other companies with their goals?

PS: We have our net-zero commitment and make significant investments to reduce our carbon footprint. For example, we converted a coal-fired cogeneration plant to gas, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by about 60%. Communicating these achievements effectively is crucial. We focus on selling outcomes, like improved energy efficiency or reduced emissions, rather than just technical solutions.

DJ: What challenges do you foresee in talking about sustainability, especially as it becomes a buzzword?

PS: Standing out in a crowded field is challenging. Veolia's long track record and reputation for delivering results are strengths. We emphasize that we're the ones who do the work—upgrading infrastructure and operating it more efficiently to achieve sustainability goals.

DJ: How do you commit to long-term partnerships and collaborations, especially in new markets?

PS: Our GreenUp strategy emphasizes alliances and partnerships as key enablers of growth. These partnerships can take many forms, from working with local communities to collaborating with engineering and construction firms. For example, we partnered with Kiewit Construction to win a contract for Henry Ford Health Systems, aiming to build the first net-zero hospital system in the U.S.

DJ: What makes these partnerships successful?

PS: Complementary skillsets and alignment in culture and purpose are crucial. For instance, Kiewit’s engineering and construction expertise complements our operational capabilities. Cultural alignment ensures smooth collaboration and shared goals.

DJ: What advice would you give to someone new to the environmental field?

PS: Follow your passion. Working in a field that makes a positive impact is rewarding. Engage with industry organizations and conferences to build a network and learn from others. You don't need to be an engineer; various skills can translate into this industry if you have passion and dedication.

📝 Full episode transcript

Hello friends, you are watching Green New Perspective Podcast, your go to place when you want to learn about innovations happening within cleantech, nature, tech, biotech and agritech space. Today I'm hosting Patrick Schultz from Veolia, one of the biggest and oldest cleantech companies out there. So we are going to explore the history of Veolia and how they're using their tech and experience to help other businesses and organizations to become more environmentally friendly. So stay tuned and enjoy the conversation. So hi Patrick, and welcome to the Green New Perspective podcast. Dunia, can you for starters, tell me and our audience a bit more about yourself and your role at Aeolian North America.

Of course. And first, thanks for having me on your podcast. I'm really happy to have this conversation today. I'm Patrick Schultz, I'm the CEO of Veolia Sustainable Industries and Buildings business in the US. Maybe for my introduction, I'll start a little bit early on. I actually grew up in a very small town in Germany around a lot of nature was in the Black Forest in southwest Germany, and I think being around nature is a big part of why I'm quite passionate about sustainability and protecting the environment today, and why I chose a career in the environmental field, and that that passion, I guess, continued into my time in university.

I studied environmental engineering in Germany, and then over 20 years ago actually moved to the US for graduate school. And now, 20 years later, I'm still here. I spend five years in academia studying climate change, specifically the impact of climate change on ocean ecosystems, but then realized that maybe academia wasn't quite the right path for me, and so moved into consulting the consulting for a few years. And then 13 years ago, I've joined Veolia, in our municipal water business and had a number of different roles, throughout those 13 years. And as I said at the beginning, I now lead our industrial and commercial water and energy business in the US to introduce Veolia. Probably a good idea to talk a little bit about who we are, because we're not as much of a household name in the US. We're certainly quite well known in Europe. We're a French company, been around for many, many years. Veolia was actually founded 170 years ago, the first public private partnership in the world to solve water and health crises in French cities.

And we're now the largest environmental company worldwide, just for scale. Few numbers. were a $48 billion a year company with over 200,000 employees. Another way to think about our scale. We supply drinking water to over 100 million people, and we treat wastewater for almost 100 million people around the world.

And what is the case for Veolia North America? What challenges may or at least main challenges are you trying to solve? What helps?

Yeah. So in the US we're about a $5.5 billion business. We're the largest private municipal water company in the US, and we're in the top three for hazardous waste management. And then my business unit, sustainable industries and buildings, we operate utilities and infrastructure at over 100 industrial sites and commercial buildings across the US, and that's across a very wide range of markets, whether that's oil and gas, chemicals, food and beverage, processing, manufacturing. And we also work with state and local governments in terms of the the solutions that we provide or the problems that we we solve.

the way I think about it is that most companies ultimately want to produce goods, want to provide services, want to entertain us, whatever the case might be. And they need to do it in a way that's profitable, because otherwise they're not going to be around for a very long time. but and that's the good news, I think, for the world, but also for us as an environmental company, more and more companies want to do this by also reducing their impact on the environment. They want to produce their goods, they want to provide their services, but they also want to, let's say, reduce energy consumption, reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, reduce the waste that they produce and or waste, it goes to landfill, increase recycling rates or again, relevant to our conversation, particularly today, reduce the pollution that goes into rivers and lakes or reusing water more on site. And really what we do as Veolia, we enable those companies do both, right. We help them make the operations more profitable, more reliable, and at the same time help them reduce the impact they have on the environment.

Can you tell me more about the trade off relationship between wastewater and energy?

Yeah, it's a it's a topic I really like. And, it's, when I think about it, in our industry, we often talk about the energy water nexus. And in many ways, I actually feel that it's a pretty artificial concept. Right. Because you're sort of talking about having two things. Energy energy and water come together. But the only reason you have to come up with this concept is because we artificially silo those things to begin with, right? We kind of said, hey, there's a water business, there's an energy business, there's a waste business. and even within Veolia, for a long time, this is how we were organized. And what we realized is that in many ways, these things are really, really interconnected. And really the one theme that kind of ties it all together that this ultimately about creating economic value while preserving limited resources. And they can be materials, they can be water, they can be energy.

Right. And recognizing that these things really are closely connected and the best solutions, look at all of them at the same time. That's the reason we created the Sustainable Industries and Buildings business unit, rather than keeping a separate water and energy business, actually saying we can provide much more comprehensive solutions to our customers.

And how do you help companies address the interconnectedness across facilities and communities as well?

maybe I'll give some more specific examples. I mean, generally when we look at these challenges, the solutions tend to fall into kind of two categories, right? It can be around efficiency. So doing more with less and it can be around circularity meaning getting more value out of a resource by not having a linear model where you take a resource and then you waste it, but you actually recycle it, you return and it can be a product, it can be can be water. And these topics are really relevant in some of the very fast growing industries in the US today. If you think about AI, the data center boom, right.

You have a lot of investment going into data center construction. A lot of those data center developers want to be green. So they're looking for renewable energy and solar in particular wind. And a lot of the places where there's a lot of solar power, renewable energy available tend to be states like Texas. You know, that at the same time, while they have a lot of sunshine, also tend to be quite dry. And so this is where is one of these areas where water and energy start to connect. Because you need water for cooling of data centers. And it becomes a challenge. So you need to balance the access to renewable energy and the availability of water for cooling. We see something very similar for green hydrogen developments. It's a big booming market as well. Part of the energy transition is to build these green hydrogen hubs. And a lot of the developers of these hydrogen hubs come out of the renewable energy space. They they have wind power, they have solar power. But again, in order to produce hydrogen, you actually need very large quantities of water that needs to be treated.

And so again, it's in order to produce that green fuel that hydrogen can be you actually need to solve both the energy as well as the water problem. And where we get involved as Veolia is, we we work with hydrogen developers as an example to help them figure out where to source the water, how to treat it. And we're ultimately the company that can then operate the utilities and the water treatment.

And can we explain this a bit further by mentioning a specific client story, where you helped client is achieve some of the ESG goals or net zero goals?

I'll pick an example that's maybe a bit unexpected. I guess it's unexpected for two reasons. One, it's actually related to the oil and gas industry, so maybe not the first industry you would think of in a sustainability podcast. And then I'm also picking this example because it's not brand new. It's actually a project that goes back 15 years. And the reason I'm mentioning this one is because I want to make the point that a lot of the solutions and technologies we use have already been around for a long time.

It's really more about deploying them rather than necessarily new technologies. And so the example I have is with, an oil company, a large oil and gas producer in central California. it's a heavy oil field. And the big challenge that they were facing was that for every barrel of oil they were producing at that site, they were also producing somewhere around 15 to 20 barrels of water. So in some way you could actually think about this being a water project where oil is decided, is the byproduct of water production. The challenge, of course, is that that water that was coming up with the oil is highly contaminated and very has very high salinity, much more salty than, than seawater. And so you can't just discharge it into an environment. And so what we as Veolia developed together with our technology sister company, is a treatment process called opus, where we take this water that's produced alongside the oil, and we can treat it to a point where some of the water can be used to make steam, which is used for the oil production process.

But more than half of the water that comes up now is treated to a point where we can discharge it into the environment, and in this case, we actually discharge it into an artificial wetland, which has significant biodiversity benefits. Right. It's good for migratory birds in that area. And it's created a it's really a boon for biodiversity in that area. But even more importantly, the water gets injected through that artificial wetland and recharges the aquifer in central California, an area that's experienced a lot of drought. And so that water in the aquifer ultimately can be reused downstream, for example, for agricultural uses. And so it's really taking something that's been a highly contaminated source of water, putting in the treatment process. We operated as Veolia. And as a result, we can recharge an aquifer in a very drought stricken area of the country.

Yeah. You mentioned that the technologies that you were using are not new. So can you talk what tech and which strategies were employed in this project?

Yeah. So in this case it really was about finding clever ways of combining different treatment technologies to the point where we can take that water and treat it so that it can be discharged into to into the environment.

It's it's actually another really good example for that energy water nexus in some ways, because in order to treat water to that point, you typically need membrane based technology. So reverse osmosis is the last treatment step at that process in order to really get it to that, to to the purity level that you need to discharge. And that's the case for a lot of advanced water treatment that we see today, for example, for water reuse or desalination and so forth. And the energy water nexus come into play here because these membrane based technologies solve the problem on the water side, but they're much more energy intensive. So you actually need a lot more energy to run membrane based treatment processes compared to more traditional water treatment. And this is something we're addressing, for example, in the Middle East where we're building some very large we're involved in the construction of very large desalination projects, and we're now coupling desalination projects with very large solar installations in order to produce the energy that's needed to actually desalinate the water. And I see more and more of that happening in the US as well, is that we'll combine onsite water reuse with onsite solar, with onsite renewables, in order to offset some of those energy needs.

Yeah, that sounds exciting. While we're at the exciting. What's the what really big picture or big, big picture vision for sustainable infrastructure over the let's say 5 to 10 years.

I'm really happy to to be in the role that I am, because it really feels like right now it's a it's almost a golden age for, for companies like Veolia. there's a couple of reasons for that. If I kind of talk really about the bigger picture in particularly in the US, a few big factors. We have really a re industrialization of the United States with through federal programs like the Chips act, it's attracting semiconductor manufacturing back to the US, shortening supply chains also in pharmaceuticals. There's other industries a lot of investment going to industrial production. Obviously industrial production requires power and water, and it needs to be done in a sustainable way. And so that drives business. At the same time, there's funding sources available like the Inflation Reduction Act, that really make it more attractive to invest into renewable energy or sustainable infrastructure.

That drives a lot of it. And then finally, and I think that's probably the most important one, more and more companies are starting to really think about how can they run their operations with a reduced impact on the environment, and that that's not only net zero carbon. That's certainly at the top of the list for most companies, but it's also landfill diversion. So putting less waste into landfill, increasing recycling rates, making those commitments and then also commitments to reducing the impact on on watersheds or water resources. The one thing I'll mention in this case is that we actually did a survey, about a year ago, where we interviewed about 200 executives across nine industry sectors to understand how they think about their goals around carbon, around waste, around water. And I think two really interesting insights that are relevant for how we think about our opportunities to grow. One is on the water side, water is only number three on the priority list at the moment. Carbon really is at the top of the list, but we expect it to catch up in the next few years.

A lot of the respondents said actually, only only about 10% of the respondents said they currently have goals in place related to water reuse, but almost 50% said they are expecting to develop those kind of goals in the next few years. So it's really going to catch up. the other really big opportunity for a company like Veolia that provides the solutions and that gets the work done, is that a lot of companies have made commitments to reduce their impact on the environment, but don't necessarily have projects and actions in place to get there, and that's really where we come in. I mean, we're not a consulting firm, right? We're not an entity that talks about sustainability. We've been delivering sustainability for many, many years. I would say even from before it was a buzzword. And that's really our business is to help companies achieve those goals by building infrastructure, upgrading infrastructure and then operating the infrastructure in a way that reduces carbon footprints, waste footprints and water footprints.

So we were talking about how you're helping other companies with their ESG goals, but what do you do inside within Veolia to help your own sustainability goals?

A couple of things.

Obviously as Veolia, we have our own net zero commitment and carbon reduction commitments. So we're not only looking at reducing the carbon footprint of our customers, but we're also making significant investments into our own carbon footprint to reduce it. Really good example actually, from a few years ago is, part of my business unit. We took over the utility island for a very large chemical manufacturing complex in Virginia. And the main reason for us winning that contract was to improve the reliability of utility supply. As I said at the beginning, that's ultimately what customers are looking for. But one of the first things we did is we took a large co-generation plant that was producing steam and power for that site that was coal fired, and we converted it from coal to gas. And so that allowed us to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from that power plant that we now operate and will be operating for a couple more decades. It's a long term contract. Reduce that greenhouse gas footprint by about 60%. So really significant impact on that carbon footprint.

Since we are a marketing agency, I'll have to steer this conversation a bit of a different direction and ask you a couple marketing or better communication related questions here. How do you explain what you're doing to the broader audience? How do you explain how do you communicate your complex technical solutions, and how did that change over time? Because you're one of the oldest sustainability companies out there.

And it's a those are good and in some ways challenging questions. Right. while we are a very large company globally, and have a lot of history, I would say there's two main challenges that we're looking to address through our communication and marketing strategy. The first one really is the need to build more brand awareness in the US. You know, we're a household name in Europe where a household name, even in the Middle East, we're not yet a household name in the US. How do we address that? I mean, a big part of that is just get the word out and talk a lot about the good things that we do.

Right? We're a very engineering focused culture. It's not really in our nature to, you know, we do a lot of good work, but we don't necessarily talk about it. So we put a lot of effort into thought leadership. I mean, there's a reason I'm on the podcast today, right? And it's one way of getting the word out. you'll see probably more of us at, at some of the big sustainability events like Verge or Green Biz. And it's really about talking about the good things that we do and really building that kind of brand awareness, even through, things like being the official sustainability partner of the Pickleball association. And we were sponsoring pickleball tournaments across the US and trying to make that which is the fastest growing sport in the US. We're trying to make that a more, a greener sport, and it's a way to get the brand out the other piece. And that's more really working internally with our sales teams and marketing is ultimately and that's what we're trying to change, is it's really about selling outcomes.

Right.

Again we're a very engineering technically focused culture. And I would say what comes natural to us, and you may have noticed is when I gave the examples, I like to go down into some of these technical details and talk about the cool things that we do. But in the end, most of our customers don't buy that. What they really want to buy is an outcome. They are looking for a solution to a problem that they have, whether that's reducing their costs, improving the energy efficiency, reducing operational risk, improving safety. In the case of our municipal business, building stronger communities. So we focused a lot on communicating more about what is it that our projects actually accomplish on behalf of our customers. Right. It's not about, hey, we put a new boiler into a cogeneration facility, but we reduce the greenhouse emissions by 20%, 40%, 60%. Or it's not about installing a solar project at a wastewater treatment plant. And we talk about the megawatts. It's really more about what does that do for the wastewater plant, actually makes it more resilient because it's less dependent on the grid in some cases can be fully independent from the grid.

So in case there's brownouts, blackouts in the grid, the wastewater plant doesn't go offline because it may have its own microgrid that produces power, might have batteries for storage, and it actually increases the resiliency and to reduce this greenhouse gas emissions. So really focused much more on what are these outcomes that our that our solutions actually accomplish. And that's a it's a it's a bit of a change management approach with the sales team, because it's not traditionally how we sold our solutions. It was much more of a technical here's what we do. This is, you know, these are the technical solutions to but this is what it means for you. Yeah.

Yes. It's more of a storytelling strategy. then explain. Yeah. But can we talk about challenges that you see in the future when we talk about marketing, especially now when, like you said, sustainability became a buzzword?

Yeah. I mean, I think it's, you know, even 10 or 15 years ago when I started with Veolia, being an, an environmental company was maybe more of a unique position to be in.

Nowadays there's a lot of companies, a lot of startups, other established companies coming into the environmental space. And so having a voice that stands out from the crowd, I think is more of a challenge than maybe it was 15 to 20 years ago in the environment. what I think a lot about is while there's a lot of entities, companies, startups that are interested in solving climate change, they're interested in solving environmental problems. What is truly unique about what we do as Veolia. And that's what I'm trying to emphasize, to kind of overcome that challenge of being drowned out by the noise. Right. And I would say there's two things that come to mind. One is it's really not anything new to us. Right? We've been doing this for a long time. We actually have a decades long track record of solving these kinds of problems and delivering results. Whereas a lot of new entrants in the market may not have that kind of track record. So really focusing on, you know, we're a old company, we've been around for a long time.

And sometimes that can be a challenge because maybe you're not quite as nimble and don't maybe move quite as fast. But I really see this as a strength of ours because we have that reputation, we have that, we have that track record. The other piece is really around emphasizing that what I like to say is, you know, sustainability. We're the ones to do the work and get it done. Right. This is not about reporting. This is not about consulting. This is about real investment and upgrades and construction of new infrastructure and then operating that infrastructure in a different way. And I think that's important, right. Because sustainability and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is not going to be achieved through goal setting and reporting. It ultimately gets achieved through new infrastructure upgrades of infrastructure, new technologies and operating things differently in a more efficient way. And that's really the core of what we do. So really emphasizing this. We're the ones to do it. We're the ones who roll up our sleeves and get the work done.

That's really the emphasis for us.

Changing the infrastructure is the answer I usually get here in the podcast from the clean tech companies, clean tech leaders. My next question for you is how do you commit to long term partnerships and collaborations, especially on the new market?

It's actually interesting. We we recently released our global strategy for Veolia for the next four years. Call it our green up strategy. And aside from obviously setting our growth objectives and priorities for the various markets and geographies that we want to be in, we've also spent quite a lot of time as a company thinking about what enables the growth that we want to accomplish and for the US, that growth actually, by the way, is where our goal is to double our business in the US by 2030. So very ambitious growth goals, one big enabler that we've identified in our strategy is what we call alliances and partnerships, because it's very clear that the challenges we're all trying to address here climate change, other environmental challenges. I really don't think there's any company in the world that can do it on their own.

And despite being the largest environmental company, it's very clear to us that we need to work with others to accomplish those goals. And for us, partnerships can really take many different forms. It can be partnering with the local communities that we operate in, not for profit organizations, for example, to help attract new talent into the environmental industry. One thing that we've done recently is we've actually open sourced our water operator training, so anybody in the world can have access to our Veolia Academy and learn essentially online how to be a water operator. And we make this available to anybody, for free. That's part of building that that aligns and partnership with with communities and bringing people into our industry. well that's exciting. Yeah. Another way. And this is maybe an example out of my, business. I mentioned a lot infrastructure upgrades and then operating that infrastructure. Now as Veolia, we're not a construction company. Right. So in order to upgrade infrastructure, we always need to work with partners. engineering and construction firms as an example.

And we reasonably really good example that illustrates this as we work with Kiewit Construction, one of the largest construction firms in the US. And we we have several projects that we're working on today. But we recently jointly submitted a bid for Henry Ford Health Systems in Michigan, which is a very large hospital that's being built. And we were successful in winning basically the entire energy island. So Kiewit is going to design and build that energy island. And then as Veolia, we are going to operate it, for for 30 years and really provide, I would say, energy as a service to that, to that hospital. And what that allows us to do is bring a very comprehensive offer to our customers that combines the engineering and construction capabilities that are brought by our partner and combine it with the operations and service capabilities that we have. And in the case of this hospital, what that will allow us to do is we're aiming to build the first net zero hospital system in the US. A lot of focus on waste heat recycling, digital energy management, really focusing on electrification and bringing a lot of innovations to this.

And we wouldn't be able to do this on our own. This is really only possible through these committed long term strategic partnerships.

And why do you think that makes these partnerships collaborations successful?

I think it's about finding partners that have complementary skill sets. On the one hand, right where it's very clear that one plus one is more than two, right where it's the where by combining in this case, for example, engineering and construction capabilities and a very long track record in the US for building infrastructure with our ability to operate this kind of infrastructure in the long term. So the complementarity is really important. I think what's even more important is in alignment in culture. It's really important for us to find companies that have an aligned purpose and an aligned culture. And if I take the example of Kiva, it is a really good one. They're a very engineering focused culture. It's a when we talk to them, it just feels like I'm talking to colleagues, right? It's it feels very natural to work with the with them.

And that's something that's important to us. We always look for partners with a strong alignment on the purpose, strong alignment in the culture.

And my last question for you is not related to Veolia, but to you personally. You said that you knew from the beginning what you're going to do, that you're going to work something related to environmental science, environmental protection. What advice would you give to someone who's new to the field and maybe not schooled in this field, but want to join the community?

I mean, the first thing I'll say is follow your passion, right? I mean, if this is something you feel strongly about, I would say anybody who goes to work in the morning and feels that their work has an impact on the world, that's That's meaningful, right? And that's one of the things that gets me out of bed in the morning is that when I go to work, I feel like I'm I'm doing something positive. It's not just a job. Following that passion is important, I think in other way, if, if particularly if you're maybe not in the field today, but you're interested.

There's a lot of conferences around sustainability, there's a lot of industry organizations. I think there's good ways of just kind of, you know, sticking your foot in the water a little bit and testing out and building a network and and talking to people who already are working in the field and seeing what a, what an area could be. I mean, I talk a lot about how our industry is very engineering and, you know, science heavy, but some of our most successful employees in Veolia came from different careers and are not necessarily engineers. You don't have to be an engineer to work in in an environmental space. It's really more about bringing the passion to work right on the one hand and thinking about what are the skills that you have and how do they translate into this industry.

Thank you Patrick. I hope this is going to inspire more people to join the community, because it is great to work in the climate space. Absolutely. Well thank you. Hey. Well, you've come to the end of the conversation with Patrick Schultz from Veolia and to the end of yet another episode of the Green New Perspective podcast.

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