BETWEEN CRISIS AND INNOVATION: VEOLIA'S FORMULA FOR KEEPING ESSENTIAL SERVICES RUNNING

Francois Debergh is Veolia Country Director for Bulgaria, Greece and Albania. He has a solid entrepreneurial background having set up and/or directed a number of businesses for design and operation of environmental services. With over 25 years of experience in Central and Eastern Europe, he has been supporting local authorities and industrial customers to achieve their ecological transformation goals and reach ecological security.

What are the greatest challenges in managing a company with an immense impact over the lives of millions of people by Veolia worldwide and Veolia in Bulgaria?

I think the greatest challenge is to guarantee uninterrupted, high-quality essential services in water, energy, and waste management for millions of people globally. While these services often feel like a given, maintaining their continuity and reliability in an increasingly unpredictable world is both critical and demanding.

More than ever, we have to navigate between the impact of geopolitical crises that directly impact our operational costs and supply chains and require constant adaptation. We need to reinvent our processes to respond to emerging challenges, from epidemic surges to unexpected disruptions. Climate change threatens the natural resources we depend on. Here it is not just about preventing consequences; we are actively adapting our infrastructure and strategies to build long-term sustainability.

Another challenge, perhaps the most pressing one, is the rapid advancement of AI and digital innovation across our entire value chain. Staying competitive and efficient means continuously evolving our capabilities to catch up with these technologies effectively.

The last challenge is balancing immediate operational needs with long-term innovation, while guaranteeing reliable service delivery to the communities and industries that rely on us.

How is this reflected locally in energy sector services, for example, the district heating in Varna through Veolia Energy Varna?

In Bulgaria, we operate the district heating system in Varna and through Veolia Solutions Bulgaria, we deliver energy and water management solutions to commercial and industrial clients all over Bulgaria.

Over the years, we have proven that despite the different geopolitical crises, which can severely disrupt the energy market, or the epidemic surges, which disrupted our usual processes, we have ensured continuous heating to the citizens and energy services to commercial and industrial customers with the same level of quality and reliability.

For us, energy should be a sustainable service with smart resource management that should be accessible and affordable to customers and be secured and contributing to the ecological transformation.

In Europe, Veolia's ambition is to become the leader in the district heating market by 2030 and to deploy best practices and innovations we have developed in the around 500 district heating and cooling networks that we operate across the continent. These regional systems supply heat to millions of customers and account for roughly 9% of all connected district heating users in Europe.

In response to the challenges we have outlined before, we are continually rolling out new solutions and initiatives. A prime example is our recent innovative offering, "Ecothermal Grid," which provides decarbonized district heating. This solution is designed to make cities cleaner, smarter, and more sustainable. It achieves this by intelligently combining diverse energy sources - including bioenergy, geothermal, waste heat, heat pumps, and electric boilers - with energy storage and AI-driven control for guaranteed reliability and flexibility in delivery.

Also, to face the heavy pressure on energy and water resources caused by the fast growing data center business, Veolia is responding with new solutions for cooling these facilities with a minimal amount of water, while also utilizing the heat they release for district heating wherever it makes sense.

It perfectly illustrates our transformation into an environmental powerhouse. We can deliver these innovative solutions globally to genuinely improve environmental security. On a local level, I should add that in Bulgaria, we would be very happy to support Toplofikacia Sofia in their ecological transformation, should the opportunity arise in the future.

And what about the water sector? Veolia is operating the biggest water and sewerage operator in Bulgaria - Sofiyska Voda?

In Sofia, we are operating Sofiyska Voda which is indeed the largest operator in Bulgaria and considered to be the best performing one.

I think that over the years, we have earned the trust of the citizens of Sofia and our municipal partners even though the path was not always easy since we took over the concession in 2010. Eventually, Veolia's expertise and experience combined with the quality of our teams in Bulgaria, supported with consistent and sustainable investments programs improved the water system over the years as well as the customer service keeping a very affordable price.

Our key challenge remains the same here, delivering water - an essential service - while preserving resources and adapting constantly to disruptions provoked by crises of all kinds we had to face in the last years: the Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical crisis, energy crisis. The most recent one, was a surge of Phytoplankton in May 2025, a direct consequence of the climate change, which we had to mitigate to maintain the quality of taste of water in Sofia which is for me the very best in the region. And I have tasted many of them in the last 25 years.

Now, regarding the state of the water market in Bulgaria, it is definitely critical in certain regions. In the last two years, severe water restrictions have been implemented, even in major cities such as Pleven. The sector urgently requires substantial investment. Furthermore, it must address the challenges of a human resources shortage, adapt to demanding European directives, and enhance operational processes to ensure the preservation of water resources.

Somehow, we had to go through the same journey in Sofia which faced water restrictions in the late 1990's. Some of our infrastructures were in critical condition with more than 60% water losses in 2010. Today, the expertise brought by Veolia and the constant annual investments of around 25 million euros in the network and facilities have brought down the percentage of water losses down below 37% in 2025 and improved the whole water systems. Our intention is to invest 30 million euros next year to get a further reduction in this percentage and continue to improve our systems.

Coming back to energy challenges and environmental security, Sofiyska Voda is also working hard on reaching 100% energy neutrality and a CO2 neutral water cycle in the coming years. I hope for such an approach everywhere in Bulgaria, and we are always ready to help our colleagues in the sector outside Sofia and share best practices. We can learn from everyone and sharing knowledge is essential between regions but also with neighbouring countries.

And last but not the least, though water utility seems like very traditional and old fashioned, we are also on the innovation playground, partnering with startup ecosystems but also giving the opportunity to our teams to innovate with AI to improve their processes.

Climate change does not allow for inaction. Time is pressing us. Bulgaria is not the only country that faces this huge challenge: Athens had a water emergency last year, colleagues in Barcelona were transporting water with tankers.

This critical aspect must be discussed between relevant stakeholders to build sustainable solutions. It requires involvement from public authorities, communities, industries, NGOs and companies like Veolia who aims at building solutions combining its expertise in water, energy and waste management.

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