Veolia Environnement SA (VIE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us for this Thema event dedicated to sustainable desalination. A warm welcome to all of you that are here with us in person and those of you joining us remotely on the live stream. Perhaps you have been following these field trips that have taken us from the U.S. to France to Hungary to now here in Oman. Each time, the intention is to bring you at the heart of Veolia's most innovative solutions in service of industries, in service of populations and perhaps through this common thread to show you the power that results in the combination of Veolia's various business lines, various activities. So here we are today to talk about desalination. It's a highly topical issue with a growing panel of use cases, as you'll see. And to open this plenary, I'm going to leave the floor to Veolia's CEO, Estelle Brachlianoff.

Hello, everyone, and thanks for making the journey all the way to here, Sur in Oman, which is our innovation hub for sustainable desalination, here. Look around us, it's no coincidence that we are in Sur. On our left, we have the endless Arabian Sea. On our right, a powerful Middle Eastern sun. And in between, we have built here something remarkable, a facility that turns those 2 natural forces into a solution, a solution for one of humanity's greatest challenges. It is a global game changer that showcases our commitment to pioneering solutions and breakthrough technologies. Just a few words that we all get to start with for those of you who are not so familiar with us before we deep dive into the water challenges and solutions. So Veolia is a Fortune 500 company, EUR 45 billion turnover; worldwide leader in environmental services and present in waste, in water and in energy, and consistently in the top 3 in every country and activity we operate. And we're not only a multi-business company, we are an integrated solution provider, as you will see throughout the day. Combining waste, water and energy expertise to offer unique solutions, both for cities and for industries alike. And what do we do? We help them to decarbonize, to depollute or decontaminate and to regenerate water and other type of resources. We are very unique in that we are both very global with 14 R&D centers across the globe and super local at the same time embedded in the local community we operate with very defined and designed to feed their specific needs. And in terms of our shareholders, we offer both resilience, thanks to our strong goal activity, which are a bit like infrastructure and essential services, as well as our booster activities, which are sustaining enhanced growth. Water in Veolia's activity represents 40% of our revenue, both in water operations and water technology. In both cases, we are the leader. So a leader in water operation, which as you know, this is distribution of drinking water, wastewater as well, and as I said, very akin to infrastructure and super resilience. On the other side, you have the water technology arm, which has been identified as one of our growth boosters, meaning mid- to high single-digit growth on average per annum in our GreenUp strategic plan. We have in this activity more than 4,000 patents and constantly like increasing this number. And again, as I said, it's a booster for growth as well as innovation. And for those who have been in [indiscernible], you will recognize this slide. This is exactly one we've presented. So within this booster of growth activity in Water Tech, we've even notified 5 priority markets. They go from micropollutant treatment, ultra-pure water for microelectronics, strategic metal recovery, water reuse and desal. So that's what we're going to focus on today, the 1 of the 5 pillars of our specific priority offers in the time being. And I would say that instead of looking at every single of the 5 as a market opportunity only, it is more a global response from Veolia to a global challenge, in a way, a megatrend. Every single of those 5 is supported by a megatrend, a very powerful one. And backed by our technological leadership and operational excellence. As you know, if you go for the geographical aspect of Veolia, we're present in 44 countries. 80% of our business is outside France and actually 40% outside Europe even with a specific growth, expected enhanced growth outside Europe and in particular, in the U.S., in the Middle East and in Australia. So in a way, we are here in a double booster, if you want, both on the water tech side, which is an activity which is boosting our growth, and on the Middle East side. Middle East, if I start with that, is really a perfect example of what we call the growth booster in terms of geography. Only 2% of the turnover now, but plus 12.5% of growth last year alone, growing super fast. We actually have doubled our size in the last 5 years. And now we have reached EUR 1.2 billion and counting, of course, we won't stop there. We want to have a plus 50% by the end of the decade, and I'm very confident we will. And numbers only tell part of the story, numbers in euros or in dollars. What -- the better way to describe what to do in the Middle East would be to say we are providing clean drinking water to 4.5 million of people in the region. We are recycling 45% of the wastewater we process. And those numbers, you would understand, given the arid climate we are here, tell a story of transformation, and we have helped shape the modern landscape in the region, really. Without water, you wouldn't have everything around this. We are enabling lives. We are powering industries. We are answering health. And at the heart of this transformation is desalination. So starting from the beginning now if we go to desalination, which is the topic of today. Why is desalination in a way becoming a big thing everywhere in the world? Because water has become the challenge of the century. This is a direct consequence of climate change that we see on water. Too much water, too little water or not at the right time or not of the right quality. And desalination in that world is not only a technology, it is a lifeline really. Just a few numbers. Water scarcity concern 50% already now of the worldwide population. So it's not only, again, for the Middle East, it's happening in other places, in Australia, in the west part of the U.S., in Europe, even in the southern part of Europe. There is a specific problem with people living on coasts where shall I remind you that 80% of the worldwide population lives on coasts. You can see where I'm going, of course, with desalination here. And some of them have only access to brackish water, which, of course, wouldn't be good for your health. As said, 50% of the population now is on lacking water, but it's increasing very much with 50% increase expected of water usage by 2050. And those aren't just statistics, they are alarm bells. There are economies at stake. So why is that so? Because everything needs water. Of course, without waters, no cities can grow. You cannot have agriculture, and you even cannot have industry. Without the secure access to water, you won't have a refinery, which, as you can imagine in the Gulf state, is quite important. You wouldn't have mining. There is a problem, as I said, about security of supply as well as extreme events. So you could have big droughts followed by big floodings, not in this part of the world, although there was one, a dramatic one 2 years ago as well. And you can have a question about water quality at the same time. So all together, this is a challenge of the century, and that's why desalination has a big stake here. So how do we tackle this challenge? With what I call our water security square. Does the mic still work? Yes, good. And the water securities work is 4 powerful solutions working in harmony, one with another. The first corner of this solution is consumption efficiency. In a way, watch your consumption at home and avoid wasting water. And of course, the same applies to industry. Just the figures, and they are on this slide, I won't comment all of them, but a New Yorker consumes 4x more water per capita than somebody living in Barcelona. It gives you a room for improvement in many geographies. Second corner, network excellence and basically reduced leakage in the distribution of the drinking water. This is 20% of -- in France to almost 50% in the U.S. And interestingly, the slide is correct, but the printed version is not on the U.S. statistic because probably some people thought it was absolutely crazy to have 50% so they print the wrong number. I think this is quite telling because it's difficult to believe. Third corner, wastewater reuse or recycling of wastewater, if you wish. From Jordan, best-in-class with 90% to 1% in France and 14% in Spain. So again, a lot we can do in many geographies to enhance the recycling of wastewater. And desalination is the fourth corner of this. So in a way, I wouldn't say desalination is the solution. It is the ultimate one, once you've already developed the other. In other words, there is no magic wand. It's a mix of solution to be able to tackle the water challenge. Veolia has been developing desalination technology for a very, very, very long time. And I'm very proud to highlight the figure, which is that 18% of the world's installed base of desalination have our technologies in it, which is a great market share. This is 13 million cubic meters per day of capacity in more than 2,000 sites on all continents. You see that on the map. It's a blueprint of excellence we have built over 50 years. And be careful about the figures of the capacity KPIs where it is in millions of cubic meter per day versus some other people who talk in American gallon per day or times per year. So be careful about the figure, please. Suffice to say that on this map, you have 2 of the 3 largest plants in the world. When our clients depend on you for their water survival, failure is not just an option. So we have developed excellence in operations as well with an installed base of 1.4 million cubic meter per day. That's how we keep optimizing and in a way, offering peace of mind for our customer, even in extreme events, super severe drought, for instance. Just a few examples to highlight. In Saudi, the Dubai plant is interesting in that it sells mainly refineries and industries as opposed to population. Gold Coast in Australia. That's a perfect example of flexibility from 0 to 100% just as needed, climate resilient security in action. That's what it is about. And the third example is Sur where we are here today, delivering water for 0.5 million people in extreme condition, and this is solar powered. When the world's most demanding clients need a partner they can trust for decades, they look at those references and they turn to Veolia. And why do they turn to Veolia? Because we contributed to revolutionize the desalination industry and dismantled a few myths associated with it. And let me go through those myths. Myth number one, environmental problem because of energy consumption and brine discharge. But it is amazing to see that we reduced by minus 85% the energy consumption compared to 12 years ago. And we can source energy from green energy, as seen on this slide, for instance. As well as you know, we've developed a lot of technical aspects to manage the brine efficiently, so it protects biodiversity. Myth number two, and of course, everything is going to be detailed a little bit later by my colleagues. Myth #2, desalination was only for the rich, the people who can afford it. It's fair to say that a few years ago, that was in the Middle East, $5 per cubic meter of water desal, which is quite expensive. We've divided by 10 this number. Now it's less than $0.50 of a dollar per cubic meter for -- to desal. So cut by 90%. That's quite an impressive improvement. And of course, it still is more expensive than surface water, but you don't always have surface water, plus it's not that much more expensive. And again, when you don't have any other choice and you compare with the alternative, which is just not to have a city, not to have an industry, not to have a business, it becomes more affordable for more and more people. Myth number three, that would be only for cities and for population. And more and more, we can see around the world that desalination is used as well for industries, for mining, for refineries like I just highlighted. Myth number four would be it's only something for the Middle East. But as I said earlier on, 50% of the world population is in a water scarce area, and we'll see many examples of desalination now exporting back, if you want to other parts of the world. In other terms, our innovations have enabled to regain confidence in this technology. We've just not improved desalination, we have almost reinvented it. Desalination begin quite simply with distillation, which another term for it will be to say that it was about boiling water to separate salt from water. That's what it used to be called the thermal technology. Of course, it's a little bit more complex than that, but basically, this is distillation. And as you can imagine, by the way I described it, it was super energy consuming. A real revolution came with the membrane technologies and reverse osmosis. But those semipermeable membranes are very fragile. They're very sensitive animals, I was about to say, specifically because they are under quite a lot of pressure, plus it's quite warm water. They need replacement, they need care, they need pretreatment to protect them from directly importing seawater, so protect them from algae, for instance, or folding. And as you can imagine, seawater can be quite aggressive. This is where the Veolia innovation journey begins. Again, starting with the figures I've just mentioned, minus 85% in energy already and minus 90% in costs associated with it. And we'll talk this morning about 3 breakthrough innovation, which showcase our leadership going forward in addition to what has already been achieved. The first one is the barrel technology. And that was first piloted here in Sur. We're talking here about 25% less energy consumption. This is a bit like a desalination in a box. So super quick to install, easier to operate and perfect for urban settings. The second breakthrough innovation is smart digital with Gen AI, which, again, you will have a flavor on in a minute. AI helps us predict, prevent issues and even solve them when they happen so that we can solve them quicker and be more efficient and basically ensure peak performance. The third one is sustainable design. We're talking here about advanced marine line protection to minimize chemical use and green energy as well usage. All the progress already made and the one on the may have enabled to unlock the growth potential of desalination. And we anticipate that the market will grow twice faster in the future than it has been in the past. By the end of the decade, our estimation goes 40,000 MLD, so million liter per day, capacity will be installed of new capacity by the end of the decade, so just in a few years. This is around $97 billion of a market. Or in other terms, every 18 months, we add the equivalent of 10 mega plants to global capacities. And again, this is happening because we've revolutionized this technology. And you can ask, okay, where will those new plant be installed? And the answer is pretty much everywhere because this breakthrough has withdrawn the global desalination map in the world. It used to be very, very much only in the Middle East type of thing. And now the Middle East will still be a big chunk. Roughly 40% of the capacity in the future will be, we think, in the Middle East, the new capacity, but 60% elsewhere. Just to give you an idea, we have a second birth or second wave of desalination in Australia as we speak, and this is only to mention one place. So this has turned desalination from a Middle Eastern solution to a global opportunity really. So what's next for Veolia? Big ambition, as you would have expected from my introduction words. And our big ambition is to maintain our market share. So the 18% of installed base already today, we want to keep it for the future desalination projects in the next few years plus we aim at doubling the capacity of the plant we operate ourselves, proving that industrial large scale desalination and sustainability can go hand in hand. An ambition is not just a target which will be a little bit artificial. It's already in motion. Just see on the next slide, just a few recent wins, recent like in the last 12 months, pretty much in the U.A.E., in Morocco and even in the U.K. I said everywhere really. And there is more to come. I cannot announce it today, but we have a few press release under preparation waiting for the last signature of our customers. So wait for the next few ones in the next few weeks and months, please. We're providing more than water, as a conclusion. We are delivering to our customers the license to grow, the license to operate, to thrive. And this is what our clients demand. So in other terms, the innovation hub and what we've developed here has helped bringing to life the combination of environmental and economical security. Thank you.

Would you like to have a seat at the table? Thank you for this comprehensive overview. And this morning's agenda is going to build upon this overview that you just provided for us. We are going to talk about Veolia's imprint in the sector. Coming next is, one, a closer look at the group's desalination business model; two, a look at how Veolia has deeply transformed itself and the desalination sector through innovation, opening new market opportunities. And three, the insights of regional directors, you'll see very concretely how they tailor the group solutions to answer the specific needs in their territories. And of course, after all these discussions and presentations, we will turn to you and the audience to take your questions, be it in person or online for those of you who are watching us online. So let's start with the sustainable desalination business model and the group's ambition in the sector. I call upon the Senior Executive VP of Water Technology Zone, Anne Le Guennec.

Thank you, Elé. Good morning, everyone. Welcome in Oman. As Estelle stated, again, climate change is a reality. And the issues that we need to face are getting more and more global. This is the reason why, at Veolia Water Technologies, we set desalination as one of our key priority offers. Again, note that desalination is a solution for everyone. But when you have no other source of fresh water, like in the Middle East, where 90% of the drinking water has to be provided by seawater because there is almost no groundwater, then we need to offer a concrete solution to our customers. And we did not wait for climate change to be so dramatic. Our journey with desalination started almost 70 years ago in this same region because, again, without seawater, life and growth would not have been possible. We started with changing our portfolio of technologies because technology is the most. We started with thermal technologies that were actually consuming quite some energy, shifting to membranes and the filtration, but adding to that some other patented technologies. Because desalination is not only about technology, we fostered our ability to do engineering and proper design. Not all the seas around the world are the same, not at the same temperature, not of the same quality, not with the same type of events. So we also delivered on complex projects and enhanced our ability to properly design plants that would fit on the local regulation and expectation. Because we do operate and maintain at Veolia all the facilities that we built at that time, we somehow closed the loop and get some proper return on experience on what we've built our technology, their efficiency, the performance of the plant, the energy consumption, the chemical consumptions and the operationality of the plants. You can guess that with such an amazing market for the water business, we were not the only one in the race. Competition was fierce. So we decided quite some years ago to really select our fights. And we decided to go for the extra large facilities because we had that expertise in the Middle East. And we were able to duplicate and really somehow standardize our engineering, making the cost a little bit reduced. We've also been quite selective on the what we do, willing to focus on our core business. So 10 years ago, we somehow left a very small and medium where the competition was really fierce and concentrated on the large one. But we did more than that. Desalination requires a lot of energy. We're not doing necessarily the supply of energy. We work with partners on that because you can have local partners. But still, we're Veolia. So we were willing to make sure that on top of reducing the energy consumption, we were going for renewable energies. So we selected our partners, worked with the authorities to make sure that our plants were fed with renewable energy as much as possible. And whenever it was not possible, like here in Sur in Oman, we implemented some solar panel next to the plant to make sure that the footprint was even better. Construction, civil works, we are not doing. We have amazing partners to do this, and we wanted to focus on our core business. And there is already quite a lot on our plate. Next slide, please. As I said, engineering design is absolutely key for that type of project, depending on the sites, the location, the regulation, you need to make sure that the plant is properly set for the expectation in terms, of course, of water quality and energy consumption. We worked on the technology. And again, the technology is not only about membranes and filtration. Pretreatment to prepare the water to go on the membranes because as the they say, membranes are very fragile, we need to protect them, pretreatment and posttreatment to remineralize the water after the demineralization is absolutely key. But we never stop there. We want our customer to be safe on the long term. So we provide them with all the chemicals that they need for the water treatment and services on the long way. So they make sure that they have the renewal of their equipment at the right time and any advice and audit, if ever they need it. Of course, with that, monitoring of the plant is key. So our digital suite come along with our role. As Estelle mentioned, desalination is on track to be developed outside of the Middle East. And we've already seen from Sydney to the U.K. from Europe to the U.S., quite a lot of customers, municipalities and industries lacked, in need for desalination. So we absolutely needed to face all the challenges that come along with desalination. The very first one on price. Of course, we think that technologies are the one costing the most in that process. It's actually not correct. Technologies, of course, are important, and we've done our best to provide market leader technologies. But the reality is that the cost of engineering is almost 20% of the cost. Construction will be also around 20%. Because this is an investment, financing is significant. And as we said already, energy is the main cost in desalination process. From 45% to a bit more than 60% for the extra large plant, energy is really the one that we needed to tackle to make sure that desalination could become affordable to anyone. And this is what we did. Working on the technology from thermal to membrane, we've divided by 7 the energy consumption of our plants. From a bit more than 20-kilowatt hour per cubic meter to a bit less than 3-kilowatt hour per cubic meter in ASEAN, our latest plants under construction in Dubai, we've reduced dramatically the energy consumption, and as you can guess, the price of the cubic meter. We worked on the design optimization. We've worked on the monitoring. And that thanks to our digital capabilities, bringing some smart sensors into our process to make sure that we are optimized at any time during the operation. The third challenge, as Estelle mentioned, is on brine. And there, I really need to come back on the myth because sometimes I'm asked about over time we're sending back stuff into the sea. No, we are sending back salted water back to the sea. Just things that we've taken to get the water, we're just sending salted water back to the sea. And this is not done in any way. Of course, before setting any plant, we work on very specific environmental assessment depending on the condition of the location where the plant is to be set. . Of course, none of our chemicals go back to the sea. We have chemicals in the process. They are treated in the process. And for the brine, it's not like, well, we're sending back to the sea anywhere. Usually, the offset of the brine is done depending on the streams to make sure that the dilution and dispersion will happen properly. So from time to time, you can have 1, 2, 3 kilometers of pipe to make sure that the brine is discharged at a place in the sea where dispersion will happen properly. And we've checked. And I can tell you that the fish are happy wherever we have discharged in place. Whenever dispersion is not naturally done or not enough, well, we've developed some technologies to make sure that the dispersion is more efficient. And this is what we have. For example, in Umm Al Quwain and Emirate in the north of Dubai. So those 3 first myths needed to be tackled and we've done it. Now desalination is affordable, consumes less energy. We can supply renewable energy to make sure that it happens, and brine are properly managed. So what's next? Well, some of our customers outside of the Middle East don't have space to install such big plants like the one you're in for the one who are with us today in Oman. In Taiwan, in Singapore, in Europe, well, sometimes the space that you have is quite limited. So we wanted to work on our footprint. And this is what we've done with our unique innovation, the barrel, which is a modular compact assembly of membrane so we can really come plug and play, still you need pretreatment, still you need the rest of the process, but we have this solution that not only is compact and takes less space, but will be faster in terms of delivery. And because some of our customers are really in a hurry, because some of our customers do have emergency, because we have impacts of the climate change happening now, we've developed a full fleet of mobile solution. And this is the type of solution that we can implement in a few months because our mobile units are ready to go, plug and play on site for small industrials that the one that you have on the screen in Egypt is still we have this ability to really provide them with small containerized solution for desalination. And of course, because we are Veolia, we don't want to stop there. As I still say, we want to maintain our leadership on large-scale plant, but we also want, thanks to those 2 solutions, the barrel and the mobile unit to grab some market share on the small and medium. We want to support our customers everywhere in the world and not only in the Middle East. But innovation is really like what makes us wake up in the morning. So we are pushing on innovation. Efficiency of technology is, of course, one. Modular Solutions, I told you; water quality improvement; and then in rigs the bell because with the same technology or almost the same technologies than the one we use for desalination, we can retain micropollutants, all type of micropollutant, everything. PFAS, for example. So we are developing solutions, very close in terms of technologies from what we do in desal for reuse, for micropollutants, for ultrapure water, for our customers around the world, and we're pushing on that. But the last one that I like very much is that now we are fostering our plants with AI but that will not me -- be me talking about that. I will leave the floor to Adrien later on.

[Foreign Language] Please take your seats at the table. 18%, that is a striking number that you heard as we open this plenary, 18% of the world's desalination capacity is built on Veolia's technologies. And this leadership, as you can imagine, is -- did not come by chance. So let's hear more about the group's innovation journey in service of desalination, and you'll see also the strength that comes from the combination of Veolia's different businesses. Please welcome the CEO of desalination expertise at Water Technologies, Adrien De Saint Germain.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Sur. I'm pleased to tell you our journey about how we become the champion of the desalination. Over the last 10 years, we executed a strategic transformation from thermal to reverse osmosis desalination. From 2013 to 2016, we decided to merge our thermal capabilities with our membrane capabilities. We focused on the Middle East market. We leveraged our project execution expertise, and we developed core technologies for reverse osmosis, as you may see here in Sur. 2017 and 2018 marked a pivotal shift in our approach. Market was under intense competition that was driving the tariff of water towards $0.50 per cubic meter. We had to react. We had to react fastly. At that time, we decided to adopt a strong design-to-cost methodology to reduce our project cost by 50% and our power consumption by 25%. As mentioned by Anne, we decided as well to build up strong partnership with construction companies. This dual approach brought remarkable successes. Late 2018, we booked 3 major desalination projects, gathering $0.5 billion revenues and more than 1.5 million cubic meter of additional contracted capacity. But booking a project is the easy part of the job. Transforming contractual commitment into reality always remain the hard one. So from 2019 to 2022, we focused on delivering those 3 projects on performance, on time and on budget. And this successful achievement sent a strong message to the market. Veolia is set to address the growing demand for sustainable desalination. Then from '23 onwards, we pursue our growth journey by focusing on our strengths. Geographies, we are looking to the Gulf countries here in the Middle East, which are gathering 40% of the desal markets. We have a deep knowledge of that geography, which is helping us. We are focusing on contractual business model that are based on the water tariff. As mentioned by Anne, we have a direct impact on 85% of this water tariff through our engineering, procurement and offering and more important, through the lowest power consumption that we can deliver. And our third lever is focusing on large-scale plants. For instance, in the [indiscernible] project mentioned earlier by Estelle, we made saving of 5% on the power consumption upfront. This created a value of $25 million. That's the power of large-scale project. This strategy is fully aligned with green objectives. We are aiming at reducing the carbon footprint of desalination, booking large-scale projects and maintaining our leadership position. But leading the race is not enough when you're aiming to be the champion of ecological transformation. We are looking beyond. We are aiming at delivering sustainable and affordable desalination solutions to any geography or markets that is suffering water scarcity. Each geography, each market is looking for different needs. So we have to provide different solutions. On the one side, we are focusing on the small size plants. For that one, we are developing a standard and scalable offer that is integrating our core technologies, including the Veolia. This value proposition will ensure faster delivery and installation. It will reduce construction cost and risk and ease the operation and maintenance for our customers. This offer will fulfill needs here for industries in the Middle East. It will also be a perfect fit to answer the emerging demand in Southern Europe. On the contrary, for midsized plant, the keyword is fit for purpose. We need to optimize the design based on the local conditions. For that segment, our plan is to combine water tech global capabilities in engineering, in process, in technologies with water operation expertise that are based on the local conditions, local market. We are developing our offering of around 3 core pillars: engineering and process expertise that will deliver the most optimized design based on the local condition; a portfolio of in-house technologies that will feature a plug-and-play approach that will limit construction costs and risk for our customers; and then an operational know-how financed with digital solutions such as upgrade that will ensure efficiency and reliability throughout the plant life cycle. This offer is set to address some specific markets, whether industrial, whether municipal in India, in Asia Pacific, and potentially in South America. We'll be selective on some key criteria such as offering based on the water tariff looking to the local power cost, securing construction partnership and ensuring our operation and maintenance long-term contracts. In the end, I would say that our desalination strategy is leveraging Veolia's core strengths: Technological innovation; operational excellence; and geographical footprint. At Veolia, we are not just delivering desalination projects, we are providing sustainable water security for communities and industries. With energy efficient and cost-effective desalination solution, we are well positioned to maintain our global leadership in the market while contributing significantly to our GreenUp objectives and beyond.

Thank you so much, Adrien. Leadership that is also very much reliant on your continuous investment in innovation. Here is one of the latest example. Here is what happens when AI allows a manager to basically talk to their plants in real time. Have a look. [Presentation]

As you can see, the future is already here. Adrien, would you like to take a seat around the table? You will have noticed through all these presentations that the need for desalination plants is growing. So we thought it would be enlightening for you to hear from the regional directors who are implementing Veolia solutions around the world. Please welcome Philippe Bourdeaux, Richard Kirkman and Arnaud Valleteau. Welcome gentlemen. My first question will be for you, Philippe, Senior Executive VP, Africa-Near and Middle East. This, as we have said, is the region where desalination originated for Veolia. Can you perhaps give us your insights on this sector and on the group's strength?

Well Elé, you cannot talk about desalination without talking about energy efficiency. And in -- at Veolia, energy efficiency is part of our DNA, particularly in the region where we have Enova, a joint venture with Majid Al Futtaim, which is the regional leader in this topic. Enova -- as Enova still has already designed a solar field also that we will visit later on. And the team are working hard from Dubai to design a new solar farm in Ivory Coast for [indiscernible]. And also they are working hard on hazardous waste landfill in South Africa in order to help those assets being self-sufficient in energy.

Thank you. And how is the group capitalizing on its resources to expand on desalination?

Well, Elé, network is the strength. Network is a key lever to deliver sustainable and long-term efficiency. For instance, thanks to our global presence, we are able to encourage and to make people work together to be able to share experience, for instance, desalination plant managers, especially in the Middle East and in Australia, work together with Veolia water technology team in order to improve the efficiency of the plant and to decrease the energy consumption. And best examples. Barka IV yesterday, some people visited. And here, so we managed to get below 3-kilowatt per hour for 1 cubic meter produced. Another network example. Thanks to the combination of our skills, thanks to the optimization of design team and operation team, we are able to save time and so for our customers to make them save money. For instance, for the future desal plant -- huge desal plant in Rabat, Morocco, we were able to deliver the feasibility studies and the global design studies in less than 4 months, whereas it can come to up to 4 years if those studies are carried out by municipalities with the help of consultants. So this is the power of combination of skills and the power of Veolia being able to deliver solutions quickly and efficiently.

Efficiently. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Philippe. Let me turn to you, Richard Kirkman, CEO of Australia and New Zealand Delegated Zone. It has been said numerous times today that Veolia does not take a one-size-fits-all approach with desalination. What are your issues at hand in Australia? And how are you addressing them with earlier solutions?

Yes. Thanks, Elé. Look, it's a really active and exciting time to be offering Water Solutions in Australia at the moment. There's an acceleration and a doubling up of desal requirements. And I really think that we've got a perfect storm of what the market wants and the capabilities that Veolia has. So let me unpack that a little bit. We talked about myths earlier. And one of the myths of desalination was that you only need it for droughts, it's droughts for desal. And I think that came out of the millennium drought back in 2000 when we had the first wave of desalination facilities. And everyone thought, okay, when the dams are low, we need to build desal plants.

Just a moment, Richard, can you hear him properly? Can everybody hear you in the room? Okay. Lovely. Please go on.

So the real drivers behind desal are threefold. First of all, we've got effects of climate change, not future climate change. We have weather conditions in Australia, which are pretty extreme. There's either a lot of rain or there's not any rain at all and there's droughts. And we found that we need desalination when it rains a lot because the rest of the water treatment facilities are overcome with storm water, so we need to ramp up the desal. So we need it sun or dry or rain rather. We also need it for population growth. If I take Sydney as an example, we've got 5 million people by 2035, we'll have an extra 1 million people. So we need to double up on desal to provide that growth. And then there's the requirements for us to do all these things in an economical way. We need to be able to grow Australia's mining sector, really important to the economy and the miners need more water. So Olympic Dam in South Australia wants to double its copper capacity. Copper is going to be a future -- a metal that's needed more in the future. So we need desal for there. Those 3 areas combined are really accelerating the need for desal, and we're ready to respond. It's going from 1,200 megaliters per day to 2,200, so nearly double, a $16 billion market, and we're ready to make that work for our stakeholders and make sure every Australian has got some water.

And what do you think makes Veolia solutions stand out in your opinion and in the opinion of your clients?

Yes. Obviously, we spend a lot of time thinking about what our clients want. And I guess it's generic that they want low-cost water, the best reliable quality and it needs to be always running. But what does that mean in the details of it. For Australia, it means that they want to be able to build facilities on time, on budget. It means they want the best global technology and in our case, so we can ramp up and ramp down, which is not the case everywhere. We've learned to do that, but also local people, a local workforce that are really tuned into the local communities because ultimately, what a lot of these facilities are, are for the local communities. So I guess we've spent the last 20 years when I look back really honing our skills in those 3 areas. We run the Sydney desalination plant, jewel in the crown of Australia's desal plants. We can ramp it up and down. We're fully wind-powered night and day, 97% recycling. We've introduced new species of bell frog to increase the biodiversity. It's a real great example of what we can do. And we've done that with our mantra of local people, so a network of people that we're training across the country that we can bring in and out as we need. Our global mothership HQ, which is really now exponentially able to provide us data from all the facilities, able to provide us the latest AI so we can accelerate the technology. And then our global technology business, which is offering things like the barrel, best-in-class technology. And those 3 things together, sometimes our competitors can offer 2 of them, but they're not offering 3 of them. And I think you could liken it to us being a real safe pair of hands, but we've got 3 hands.

Thank you so much. As you can see, these gentlemen do not like their jobs at all. Thank you, Richard. I'm now going to turn to you, Arnaud Valleteau, Director of the Project Business Line at Water Technologies. What have you learned in desalination that now fosters innovation any use cases?

Thanks, Elé. As you've seen, we've been innovating and learning a lot about desalination in the last years. And by adopting what we've learned in desalination, we are now at the forefront for tackling, addressing new emerging worldwide water challenges, such as water reuse and micropollutants treatment. So you might ask, what is the link between water reuse, micropollutants treatment and desalination? So it's all about the size. It's all about the size of the particles, the micropollutant that you want to remove from the water that you are cleaning. And if a reverse osmosis membrane can stop a salt of 0.9 nanometer, it can definitely block micropollutants which is 10 to 100x larger. So for instance, the barrel that has been especially developed for desalination is now successfully used in France on the first European project for indirect potable water reuse involving a lot fight against water scarcity in this region. Even more, reverse osmosis in Spain is widely used in order to reuse water for irrigation purposes or artificial recharge, an even more impressive example of this combining expertise within the group is what we've done and what we've learned in terms and what we've done for the SEDIF water concession contract. We've combined all the expertise of the group in order to win this contract, which is one of the most effective micropollutants treatment we will have in the world. And we've combined our forces to win it, and we are combining our forces to deliver it.

Thank you, Arnaud. What are the next challenges for Veolia on the desalination front?

The next challenge is our first an even more sustainable and even more efficient desalination. By combining, I would say, our smart design capacities and our operational excellence, by integrating our best available technologies and data and the power of AI, we will continue to improve. We are daily innovating in this field. Daily innovating in this field will allow us to go further in terms of energy consumption, will allow us to be less -- more sustainable and will also allow us to expand, as we said, from a geographical standpoint, using the network and the footprint that we're having worldwide in order to expand our desalination capacities. Furthermore, we are seeing new customers entering into this market. We see major industrial customers asking us for desalination solutions. Water is very critical for them. They want to be water resilient. They don't want to depend on any local decision in a period of trough in order to continue their operation. It's more than a license to operate. It's a necessity. It's critical. It's water. It's -- for them, I would say, business continuity, major business continuity risk. And for them, we are combining, applying, adapting our technologies, combining them with successful business model, such as mobile water services in order to be able to offer them when it comes an emergency decentralized package desalination plant. And for the more longer term, I would say, midsized, as we've seen compact desal plant. So in a nutshell for -- in the desalination market, by innovating, by adapting, by combining our forces, by delivering on time in a timely manner, we are building for our customers a more resilient water-resilient world, offering them value, offering them performance, peace of mind and sustainability without compromise.

Thank you so much. Shall we give these gentlemen a round of applause? Thank you. I'll let you head back to your seats in the room, and we are going to now open the Q&A session. Now I have some guidelines. Sorry? Perhaps after the -- I wanted to suggest after the Q&A, do you want to do it now?

That's all right with Q&A.

I follow your lead.

Q&A first then.

Let's open the Q&A session. I have a few guidelines for you. We are going to be taking some questions from those of you who are following us remotely and from those of you who are here in the room with me. As a reminder, we have a live translation in English and French, Spanish and in Arabic. So if you're asking your question from here in the room, when you stand up, would you please say what language you want to ask your question in so the translators get the cue. And for those of us who are here around the table, we can then put on our headsets in case the question is in one of the numerous languages that we do not speak, okay? Sir, we're listening to you. .

I'm going to start maybe because I'm the only one analyst here. That's going to be easier. I have some questions, not only on my side but also on my ESG colleagues. That's also an interesting point. I will start with the first one. You discussed about the energy use and the very declining price of desal. Have we reached a kind of floor regarding these prices because $0.5, as you mentioned, USD seems to be quite low. Are we going lower than that? And how -- that's the first question. The second one is energy efficiency is a good news, but also maybe could you figure out concerning the chemical product, is there also some path to reduce the chemical products in the different technologies you are using. That's also an interesting point maybe to discuss. The number three, just concerning the market share. You mentioned keeping the 18% market share. That's good news, I would say. And doubling the O&M. Could we just discuss about the difference in terms of profitability margins linked to that because it seems that OEM, it's more services, which may be a little bit less capital intensive and maybe less profitable just to put, let's say, the right ideas and right argument in the middle of this room. And the last one, I would say, you mentioned also small units, it means the barrel. Same kind of question versus the big plant. Is there -- it's working -- is there some cost issue or profitability differences between small unit and big units? That's also important for us. And the last one, in terms of landscape because you mentioned small, you can put small unit everywhere. In terms of landscape, what could prevent you to not put in place some units regarding the environmental constraint, not to do it, but to not do it.

A big thank you for all your questions. So 4 questions. So I will, of course, give the floor to my colleagues. Just to say in a nutshell, are we over with going down and down and down in cost and down in energy efficiency and down in chemical consumption? Of course, not. And you know what, even if we see each other in 5 years, I'm going to say exactly the same. We're going to be lower and still digging and trying to be even more and more efficient. But maybe a little bit more detail than this generic comment of we never give up at Veolia. We always innovate to make us more efficient altogether. And as you know, how do you measure efficiency in Veolia. The greener plant is more euros, less cubic meter of water, less pollutant, less CO2. That's simple. That's exactly the translation here. So I don't know if Adrien, you want to answer the -- are you over? Are you just stopped like 0.5 you're done? That's it.

No, we are not.

Mic doesn't seem to work.

As mentioned, the water tariff is mainly driven -- firstly driven by the energy consumption. We have broken the line of the 3-kilowatt per cubic meter, and we are looking to go beyond. We have a target in the coming years to reach 2.5.

So share your dream with us, Adrien? What's your dream?

Our dream will be to reach that target of 2.5 by, let's say, 2030, it's coming fast. So it's changing. We can see half of the way already in our hands by discussing with our partners, means suppliers and also our customers. For example, if you change a bit the water specification, the potable water specification, you can grab 0.1, 0.50 kilowatt per cubic meter. That's exactly the kind of discussion that we are willing to undertake with our customer to improve the efficiency of the system. So if we drive energy towards this 2.5 magic number, I would say, then the cost will follow as well, the water will follow as well. On the other side, we are working on the technology and engineering part. The more we go, the less we spend. I think it's good for everyone. And the same on the construction. The partnership with the construction is key. If we codevelop the design with our partner, we are able to make them -- making some savings on their side, less concrete, less rebars, less excavation and this is the way we want to be more efficient economically and more sustainable environmentally.

Other question on profitability towards the various elements. So in a way, the technology bit and the O&M bit. And maybe on the technology bit?

Yes. And I think the example on energy is very important because independently of the contractual model, the way we think our desalination facilities is TOTEX. It's CapEx and OpEx. And what makes us different in front of the customer is really this ability not only to plan for the operation in terms of cost, but also to give the customer a very strong guidelines in terms of energy consumption, chemical consumption, renewal of equipment. And the main part of the O&M cost will be the renewal of equipment. So the way we look at our desalination facility but it's not only for desalination. It's the way we look at water tech is really making sure that thanks to the performance of our equipment, the R&D on our technologies, the monitoring through digital and now AI, we optimize the plant at any time. So that's not only when the plant is brand new that you haven't optimized energy consumption or cost for operation, it's all the way long and all the way long can be something like 35 years in some of our contracts.

And in terms of profitability, as in what about the margin for Veolia itself. On the water tech element, which I would say, the project base, we've gave you a range during the deep dive in [indiscernible] because you have the global average margin of water tech within Veolia. You've got it. But we gave you as well a little bit of granularity below as in projects is not the same profitability in EBITDA as you know, product and services and so on and so forth. So that will be in desal exactly the same as the project average, which we gave you in November. Having in mind that EBITDA profitability is something, but EBIT basically in the project we're talking about, we don't invest. So EBIT pretty much equals EBITDA, which I think is an important one. And if you got ROCE and returns on capital employed, that's great as well. So that's the element on the water tech. And on the O&M, same applies. It's the same as the average of the water operation in the world that applies to operating a desalination plant. Of course, you have pluses and minuses depending on the plant, but there is no big difference compared to the rest. What I can say in addition to that is like our team of operators is very good at always chasing new stuff. So even if you give us the key of an existing facility, which was run for somebody else for years, we can save, I think, I don't know probably 10% of energy and chemicals and so on and so forth by applying the operational excellence of Veolia to an existing plant. That's a constant looking for excellence. And then the small unit, the big unit, whatever -- so you've understood that you have lot of figures in MLD. So the super large 200 MLDs and 300 MLDs, that's typically so. Then the medium is 50 to 150 and then the smaller, it's smaller. So that's exactly what was -- what was presented by Adrien. So are there places where we won't do it for environmental reason, if I understand well your question, but I hope I do -- did understand well. It's not for us to decide will be the first answer I would have say in Europe, it's usually a local authorities, which decide, okay, have a desperate need for desal, where do I put it? How do I make the project happen given a lot of legitimate constraints on the environmental basis and on the rest of it. And then we are here to offer the best-in-class solution with the best quality and price to a project, which is not ours in a way. This is for local authorities or elected members to decide what. We're here to deliver the how in the best condition possible. That's the way I see Veolia's role.

Thank you so much. Ma'am, can we bring a microphone right here, please? We're listening.

I'm Shruthi from AGBI. English is my language. Just one question about desal diplomacy for you, right? So we did speak about how the region has been a front runner when it comes to desal technology. But could it also be a situation where the region, especially GCC will be able to be exporters, of not just the tech and know-how, but also desal water itself, and it could be a major contributor in the near of our future?

Well, that's an interesting question. I guess, first things first, export desal water to other places where they have more natural seas of -- source of water, I wouldn't see it this way. So it's unlikely short term. Water still is a heavy something. So to transport it is costly, plus it needs a lot of energy to be pumped from one place to another. Nevertheless, in some places, you have pipes between somewhere near the sea where you have a desal, and where it's consumed, which could be 100, 200 kilometers away from the seashore. That happens in the world, that happened in South America, that's happened in the Near East a few times. This is the best solution usually, when you have no other choice, maybe, but it's quite cost expensive. But where you are right is like in a way, in your question, I visualized it's so much needed. It's something so scarce. It's something so important that you could even move water from kilometers and hundred of kilometers away. That, I think, is a tribute to the importance of everything we've been talking about.

Thank you so much. Let me perhaps take one question from the people who are following us remotely and then we will come to you, sir. A question from Arthur Sitbon, slide suggest that Veolia generates EUR 250 million in revenues in desalination. Could you please provide information on EBITDA generation? Should we expect EBITDA to grow in line with revenues by 2030? And how much CapEx can we -- can be required to meet these targets?

So same applies with the question which was asked earlier on. You could think of desal as exactly the same type of profitability and enhanced profitability in the next few years that what we've explained in our deep dive for Water Tech. So profitability of this EUR 250 million is the average range of the profitability of the project bid in the water tech business, which again, we gave you a figure. Plus we always -- there is basically no investment or very few. So the ROCE is super good and a lot higher than the group average, as you would expect, because in a way, we don't own the plant. And then in terms of growing, we said, but maybe there is a mic for Emmanuelle to answer the -- what we said in the Water Tech. So it was 80 basis point increase and so on and so forth. If you could recap the target we gave on the Water Tech Day.

Yes, with pleasure. So hello, everyone. Thank you, Arthur, for your question. Completely aligned with Estelle, you're right. Our revenue is not the figure that you have mentioned. We have today around EUR 400 million, 50% from Water Tech. So construction, non-construction engineering and product. And then we have 50%, which is O&M. In terms of margin, we are following the figure that you know. Regarding project, we are around 8%, so 5% and 10%, which is an amazing ROCE because we don't have any CapEx which is linked to that. And it's the same for the services, the O&M part. So very interesting margin with fantastic ROCE because the investments are very low. In terms of growth for the years to come, we are targeting the 6% to 10%. And the EBITDA contribution will increase accordingly.

Thank you so much, Emmanuelle. We had a question from you, sir. English?

Yes, please. Thank you.

We're listening.

I am [ Jermaine Mendoza ] a business reporter here in Oman. I have 2 questions. Critics argue that multinational utilities displace local expertise. Now how does Veolia ensure capacity building rather than dependency on in host countries? And my second question, how does Veolia measure and report its contribution to UN Sustainable Goal #6 on water treatment and sanitation?

So a few things on your questions. So you're right, we're quite unique, very worldwide company, present in 44 countries, as I said, 14 R&D centers across the globe and very local at the same time. And I think it's a super key of being embedded in the local communities is key for us to deliver not only for 1 year, but to deliver for a very long time. And it keeps us really, really resilient as well. What do you mean by being embedded? We employ local people. We give back to the communities. We buy as much as we can locally and so on and so forth. We train local people. So that's what I mean by locally embedded and the more and more. Usually, we start in a country with a few expatriates and then progressively, they kind of -- there are very, very few lefts because we are more like -- we are very, very, very local. I think that's the strength of Veolia to be able to combine the global worldwide expertise and innovation, like it was said, together with a very local delivery in the end. So in terms of the UN objectives, you're right, Veolia is a purpose-led company. We are the leader of environmental services and ecological transformation, which means our aim is obviously to earn more money in a sustainable way as in for a very long time and to grow sustainably as well as to bring solution to have CO2 go down, cubic meters of water go down and pollutant go down to produce the same results by our customers, be the industries or cities, which means that we are very aligned with not only the objective you mentioned of the UN targets, but actually many others. We even have a metric from the UN targets to the Veolia KPI, we follow every year in our annual report, which I would be very happy to share with you, if you wish.

Thank you so much for this question and this answer. Yes?

Maybe we can give a detailed answer on the local expertise.

Absolutely.

Yes, you're right. Maybe the -- you're right, who better than the head of the country here to explain what we do in Oman specifically for the local content.

Sure, sure. Actually, like I said in the bus during the transport to the site, Veolia is aiming to promote the local content, hiring local people. You remember, I mentioned in the bus that our workforce is 72% harmonized compared to legal requirement of only 30%. We are actually at more than the double of the legal requirement here in this country. 72% of Omani is among our employees. I don't think that there is so much private companies in this country reaching such a level.

Thank you. You wanted a follow-up question. I saw you raise your hand. Okay. We will hand over the microphone to you once more and then we'll take other questions, please?

For [ Mr. Erwin ] as well. How many Omanis are in the managerial position? And what is your Omanization goal for this year?

Yes, please, come and join us on stage, so we can say you properly.

Repeat your question?

How many managers...

How many Omanis -- yes, how many Omanis are there in the managerial acquisitions? And what is your Omanization goal for this year?

That's a pretty good question. Actually, here in Sur, there is a company belonging somehow to Veolia Group owning this plant, the CEO of this company named Sharqiyah Desalination Company, which is a public listed company here in Muscat. The CEO of this company is Omani. We are not only, I would say, training these Omanis, we are promoting them. And over the time, we are relying on them to replace the expats that could have been holding some managerial position to manage as well the company. There is no other way to be somehow sustainable in a country to deep rooting our business in a country rather than just relying on the local workforce. So my personal conviction is that Omanization requirement that can be seen in a country like Oman has constraints is actually just an opportunity for a group like Veolia to make our business more sustainable over the time.

Thank you so much for this detailed answer. Another question coming from online question from [ Prasad Yera ] With desalination expanding rapidly, how is Oman addressing the environmental challenge of brine disposal? And are there any innovative solutions in practice or in development. Moreover, is urban exploring circular economy concepts in desalination like recovering valuable minerals from seawater and brine to improve economic sustainability, et cetera. Who would like to answer this question?

So I will start and maybe ask Adrien to complement on the mining bit. Maybe if that's right. So just as I explained earlier on, when you talk about brine being put back into the sea, we're talking about salted water back into the sea. So if you were to visualize salt, this is not salt which is put back into the sea. This is salted water, which is twice more salted than the one we extracted. So it's more salted, but it's not salt as such. So I think visually, it makes the answer and the question a bit more different than if you were to wrongly visualize salt the back into the sea. So twice more salted than the intake is the -- like the disposal bit. So as Anne explained, we're already super compliant with all localization, of course, all local requirements, and every situation is different. If you have a big current, you can put this brine back. And after really a few seconds, everything washes away and is dispersed everywhere. If you have a place where it's shallow water and no current, you would imagine that you will need to do a lot more technical things such as dispersing in many, many different points as opposed to only one and so on and so forth. So we have enhanced a lot of know-how exactly in that. But then is the next step mining the brine maybe? Adrien?

Yes. It's true that the biggest...

What is there in the salted and the water salt? Like what's the miracle? Do you have like golden?

The biggest the reserve in the world of gold is in the ocean. That's true. That's a fact.

Don't worry. We're going to not take all the ocean water in Veolia, we are ambitious to extract just a few elements of gold.

But -- and there is a big but. We have the technologies to refine this brine to extract salt to extract lithium magnesium. We have membranes, we have evapo-crystallization at Water Tech. But the big but is about first, the CapEx that would be involved to do so. And the second one, which is an ever bigger but is about the energy consumption. We were talking about driving desalination towards 2.5 kilowatt per cubic meter. Using the kind of technology to go to brine will be at the total opposite of that. It will be about 20, 30, whatever number of that kilowatt per cubic meter to grab this lithium or magnesium or gold in the industry. So I think we have somehow to make a choice whether we are looking for sustainability, and this is the way of Veolia to another path where power consumption will be the driver. And the key point at the end will be the economical viability of such a business model, which so far is not yet there.

So there is a little bit of gold but not as much as what we would have hoped. Not enough to make it valuable to extract it basically. .

Thank you so much. Ma'am, we have a question right here.

So English. My name is Jennifer Aguinaldo with MEED. So my first question is, what's the magic formula? Because in -- if you look at products like green steel, there's a green premium, right? So it's more expensive than one that would have been powered using coal or conventional power. How can we get to 0.25 cubic meter considering that, of course, the ambition would be to use more wind energy. And the second one would be a question for the Middle East would be, would Veolia be still do water desalination plants as RO plants that are powered by gas in the future or not anymore.

Powered by?

Gas.

By gas. Thermal, tidal, independent order projects like Barka III, for instance. .

So is there a magic formula? No. So we're always trying to be super different from one situation to the next. But maybe Anne?

Yes, actually, and that's all the point of building local partnerships. We rely on the authorities to provide us with energy, and we want to make that energy as renewable as possible. There are plenty of countries even more when you build an extra large plant that are powered by renewable farms. That's the case in the Emirates, where there are super large farms of solar and then we can have water plants really supplied with renewable energy. When you're not talking about extra large plant that really require a power plant along with it, then the challenge will be on having renewable energy supplied through the network. So that's more the balance of renewables that you have in the network, which is not in our scope. But of course, we are promoting that. And then our magic formula will be on the -- what can we put on top of what is provided by the local authorities. So this is where, again, as an example here in Oman, we supply the solar panels around the plant to make sure that we reduce the dependency to the supply, the external supply. But we do have, for example, some wastewater treatment plant that are positive in energy because we make the most of the energy that we have. So not only the supply will be as renewable as possible, but we will recover heat from the process, and then we will make sure that we produce energy, for example, from sludge. So the magic formula will be more on how can we make the most and reduce as much as possible the energy that the plant will consume and then continue to foster renewable energy alongside with our local partners.

I think Anne's answer is a good illustration of combining the various activities of Veolia. Of course, we've talked a lot about water this morning, but very, very much linked is the energy elements. And in all the example we gave, reducing the energy consumption goes with the technology of water, but goes with the way we manage. This is what we call hub grade. This is digital. This is something we've developed in the energy business at Veolia, and we bring that to managing the plant in a more efficient way. Same applies to what Anne said on we can develop ourselves green energy project such as solar panel here, thanks to our business in energy, which was described by Philippe earlier on. So I think there is energy in water. There is energy needed in water. There is energy which can be produced in wastewater and so on and so forth. So a lot of things are intertwined in Veolia's world. Just even with waste because in Veolia's world, there is nothing which is wasted, wasted heat, wasted water, wasted sites, whatever, we're always trying to make the most of it and to not turn it into resource.

Right. We have time for one last question. Sir? Go ahead, speak in the microphone. I think we're going to hear you. We're not hearing you. Let's change the microphone.

[Foreign Language] The question is in Spanish. So going to make work to our amazing translation. [Interpreted] So my question is in -- for 2030, 2050, do you expect water business to grow significantly? Especially because, I guess, you're expecting that in regions such as Europe, we'll start noticing more climate change, and we'll realize there's more of a need for that. And in regions such as Oman with a lot of power -- economic power, we have been implementing that, but it doesn't seem so urgent in Europe and we do not have that capital. Our budgets are more limited. So what is the risk if we do not start implementing desal projects soon enough, even if our budget is more limited, and we do not feel that urgency such like in countries such as Oman.

Okay. A few things on that one. First, Oman doesn't have an unlimited budget. I'm not here to speak on behalf of the government, but of course, every single government on earth has their own constraint, and Oman government does have their own constraint. In terms of -- this is a very good question. If we don't invest now in Europe for desal, for reuse of wastewater, to reduce leakage because, as I said, it's really the 4 solutions which are needed, what will happen? The answer is very clear. It's going to cost us a lot more than if you act now. The cost of inaction is more higher. It's higher than the cost of acting now. And actually, we have a figure, it's 8x. Reacting to extreme event costs 8x more than preventing and acting now -- 8x. And that's been proven again and again and again after extreme drought and flooding and so on and so forth, the prevention is super efficient even in terms of money invested really. You have a question from Spain. And the government has been super ambitious in putting EUR 11 billion, if I remember well, a big investment plan for the country exactly for that reason. So there is still an understanding of that. If your question is, have they all understood in Europe, which I tried to get from your question, I guess, more and more this is what we see. It goes with extreme events. In France, there is a before and after 2022 because in December 2022, we had water restrictions. And suddenly, France realized that we could have a problem with water scarcity at one point, which was a big eye opener for everyone. And the good news is there is no way back. As in what we measure in our survey constantly is once you've had these extreme events, and it's exactly the example that Richard gave. 20 years ago, there was, okay, there is a big drought. And then when water comes back, everybody forgets about it. Now those times are over. Everybody has understood across the globe in Spain, in France, in Australia that like it will repeat itself again and again, and we need to act now. It's even efficiently financially speaking.

Thank you. A final...

I just wanted to add that it's a myth to that building a big plant is actually cheaper than building the small plants because the cost per cubic meter is lower when you build a big plant. Of course, this is an investment in France. But the way we can contract with the authority, whatever the customer, is quite flexible and commitment is required, but the investment is not necessarily required upfront.

So it looks like we have a last question, but only one.

Just one. Very short one, maybe a little bit outside the Thema of today. But looking at the turbulences we have had during the last days concerning U.S. tariff, maybe just a comment on your side concerning the potential impact on Veolia, if there is, and the activities which can be under this new scheme of, let's say, business trade around the world.

Thank you on your question. And actually, it's interesting to have it in the middle of Sur because I think it's very relevant. You will see how. Tariff -- Veolia has no tariff impact. We're not importing and exporting goods. We are a service company, and as we said, really embedded in the various countries we operate. So no tariff question for Veolia, which is a very big positive for us. All together, if I look globally, our equity story is really about resilience and growth. And the 2 are really combined together. The resilience comes from stronger activities. In that case, you know the water operation, which, as we said, is super recurring and very infrastructure like; and the growth comes from typically desal or water tech. I think we have a good illustration of this great combination, which brings us confidence. The third one is, as we said, macro economically speaking, we are very largely immune to macroeconomics, 85%. We've mentioned these figures time and time again. Plus, we've proven it in the past. In the last 3 years, the macro in Europe has been not exactly wonderful, and we've delivered 5%, 6%, 7% EBITDA growth quarter after quarter after quarter. And you know what, this is exactly what we're going to do again in '25 according to our guidance.

Thank you so much, Estelle. That's all the time we have for the Q&A today. For those of you who are present and who are going to do the visit. You're still here. We're still here. We can continue the discussion. For those of you who are following us remotely, we are going to close this live with Estelle Brachlianoff's closing statements. Thank you.

No, just a few words, which we'll try to capture what we've seen this morning. The first one would be innovation and technology. Really you've seen that for the example, from Gen AI through the Barrel, and you will see that in the visit. Veolia is really a company which innovates constantly not only throughout our 14 R&D centers, but through the globe. And here, in the Middle East, we are an innovation hub for desalination and then exporting back to the rest of the world. I think that's a very big example again of what Veolia is and we've discussed, which is a very worldwide company and very local at the same time, but leveraging from our strengths such as global innovation. We've seen as well an important word, which will be my second word, which is combination. combination of water operation and water tech, even of energy activities and water activities. And we even mentioned the SEDIF contract. You will say, okay, what about the SEDIF contract in the middle of a desal day? Yes, there is a link. And we won the SEDIF contracts for a lot of reasons, including the fact that we're very good in exactly what we're going to show you in Sur. So I think combination is really the third word. All together, the third one will be ambition. We are already super good and leader in this industry and aiming at going on and on, innovating and targeting our dream to be even better tomorrow and better the day after and breaking new frontiers again and again. That's why and it's put on this slide, maintain our 18% market share for all the new projects, which are numerous, which will come by the end of the decade. And eventually, I think what we've seen this morning is that water is everywhere, and it's essential for industries, for population, for agriculture. So we're not here talking about the nice to have, which you can drop in case there is turbulence somewhere. You're talking about a license to operate, a license to have cities growing. So it's absolutely essential. And that's what make us actually resilient as well because it's supported by not only a megatrend, but by just facts, which are happening constantly here and again. So in a few words, what we're trying and do is innovate to ensure environmental security. That's what Veolia is about. Thank you very much. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]