Veolia

There’s a logo that seems to be starting to appear everywhere… It’s on the dustbin lorries in Westminster, on the road sweepers’ carts in Lambeth, and, so it seems, it’s all over the world doing all kinds of environmental and transport work – trains, buses, water, environmental services. It’s the logo of Veolia, the new name for a whole bunch of different firms that have grown out of the French Compagnie Générale des Eaux from the 1850s and owned by Vivendi. The firms were previously known as Vivendi Water (water), Onyx (waste management), Dalkia (energy services) and Connex (transportation), yet putting it all together gives a more scary impression. Do we want these massive conglomerates to provide all of these services for governments?