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· Earth
Summit 101 Corporate Impacts Issue Briefs: Water, Biodiversity Polluted
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Vivendi |
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Environmental Pollution Vivendi Environnement is the environmental services (water, energy,
waste and transport) subsidiary of French media and communications
company Vivendi Universal. It claims to be the number one environmental
services company in the world and the largest water company in
the world. Vivendi Universal shares are traded on the French and
U.S. and Canadian stock exchanges. Vivendi's water division -
Vivendi Water - was formed from Vivendi Water Systems, Compagnie
Generale des Eaux and U.S. Filter. In this report "Vivendi"
is used to refer to Vivendi Universal and subsidiary Vivendi Environnement. 1. Vivendi's subsidiary Tyseley Waste Disposal Ltd. was listed
by the UK's Environment Agency as the second worst polluter in
1998. Environment Agency director of operations, Archie Robertson
said, "The companies included in our Hall of Shame have let
down the public, the environment and their own industry"
(1). 1. Vivendi subsidiary Norwest Holst Construction Ltd. was prosecuted
and fined £50,000 ($78,280) with costs of over £20,000
($31,300) after an employee died from injuries received when he
struck an underground electric cable with a pneumatic drill in
September 1998. The court found that site rules were not being
enforced, despite the fact that this was high-risk work. No edge
protection had been provided and the risk assessment for the work
was inadequate (7). The Puerto Rico Aqueducts and Sewers Authority (PRASA) water
supply and sanitation services were privatized to Vivendi's CompaZia
de Agua in 1995. Since then, PRASA has been the subject of two
highly critical reports by the Puerto Rico Office of the Comptroller,
who said in a press conference that water privatization "has
been a bad deal for the people of Puerto Rico." The most
recent report found 3,181 deficiencies in management, operation
and maintenance of the infrastructure and said the leakage rate
was around 50%. Since privatization, PRASA has reportedly been
fined a total of $6.2 million (£4.3 m) for various violations
of environmental laws (10). 1. It has been reported that in July 2001 Alain Maetz, a senior
manager in Vivendi's water division, was convicted for bribery
and received a prison sentence of one year and eight months with
conditional discharge. Judges said that Mr. Maetz had paid a bribe
of ITL 25m (about £8,000) to Mr. De Carolis, the president
of Milan city council, who expected to receive up to ITL 200m
(over £64,000 ($100,000)) to favor OTV, a subsidiary of
Vivendi) in the bidding procedure for the contract for a wastewater
treatment plant in the south of Milan. Mr. De Carolis disclosed
to Mr. Maetz, the list of bidders for the contract (which should
have remained secret) and it has been reported that OTV subsequently
bought 51% of Italian company Siba, which appeared in this secret
list of competitors. Mr. De Carolis and Mr. Maetz, together with
three intermediaries, will have to pay ITL 1bn (over £320,000
($500,000)) damages to the city council (12).
Vivendi is a member of several corporate lobbying groups, including the European Social Forum (ESF) and USCSI (the U.S. Coalition of Service Industries). The ESF describes itself as "committed to promoting actively the interests of European services and the liberalization of services markets throughout the world in connection with the GATS 2000 negotiations" (15). USCSI is a major service industry lobby group which claims a significant role in setting a liberalization and deregulation agenda for negotiations on the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Inclusion of water in the GATS agreement will give multinational companies greater access to water resources or, in other words, will allow and encourage extensive water privatization (16). Notes: (1) http://www.edie.net/news/Archive/915.html |