Waste, water management helps Chinese cities, enterprises go green

“In a fast-growing world, our society is facing many challenges. Climate change, galloping urbanization and changing lifestyles are all contributing to the increased scarcity and deterioration of the natural resources which are essential to life and to the future,” said Jean-Louis Chaussade, CEO of SUEZ.

As a global waste and water management company, SUEZ, is determined to help Chinese cities and industries conserve and use resources more efficiently with its innovative and digital technologies.

According to a research by the United Nations, the planet will host nearly 10 billion inhabitants by 2050, and almost 68 percent of them will live in cities.

Chaussade said that SUEZ is committed to helping cities and industries to reduce pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and improve efficiencies in water usage.

“Every day, we help our customers to use and recover resources instead of consuming them,” said Chaussade, adding that circular economy is indispensable and that the company is ready to make a greater contribution as a leading provider of environmental solutions.

Many of those solutions have been adopted across China, including SUEZ’s cutting-edge waste treatment technologies which have been chosen by many industrial parks, cities and industries.

The company has established a resources recovery center in Hong Kong, which can turn waste into biogas and compost through biological treatment, to generate electricity up to 14 million kilowatt-hours every year. The process can help reduce 25,000 metric tons of emissions per year.

To preserve clean water, SUEZ has converted the highly-polluted wastewater from over 100 companies into demineralized water at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park through tertiary treatment and membrane technology, which can save as much as 580,000 cubic meters of clean water each year.

At the park, the hazardous wasteto-energy plant built and operated by SUEZ uses excess heat to produce and supply steam to companies, thereby helping reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.

“We are at the cutting-edge of activities which are preparing for the future and we feel proud to contribute, together with our customers, to building a more sustainable world. By doing so, we will decouple economic growth from the consumption of natural resources, and we will decrease greenhouse gas emissions at all stages of the value chain of products and services, from their design to their end-of-life,” Chaussade said.

SUEZ has been present in China with its water business since 1975 and is now operating in over 20 cities, including building Asia’s largest hazardous waste treatment plant in Shanghai which can process 120,000 tons of waste per year.

The company has also built more than 260 water and wastewater treatment plants in China, supplying fresh drinking water to over 20 million people.

According to Chaussade, SUEZ can also supply services related to the design and operation of smart and sustainable cities, the introduction of recycled materials into production lines and building access to local and renewable energies through waste recovery.

In Hong Kong, SUEZ manages about two thirds of the special administrative region’s waste treatment facilities, including landfills, transfer stations, as well as Hong Kong’s first large-scale organic waste treatment facility.

With 90,000 employees worldwide, the group is determined to support cities and industries in recycling waste, controlling water consumption and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 60 million tons by 2021.

“Today, our group is fully engaged in the resource revolution,” Chaussade said. “We are ready to innovate thanks to the multitude of possibilities created by the digital revolution and to propose radically new solutions to meet our customers’ needs.”

Every day, we help our customers to use and recover resources instead of consuming them.”

Jean-Louis Chaussade, CEO of SUEZ