The third impact café of the project "Trust and the Smart City" was held on 29 March 2022, at the Department of Government and International Studies, HKBU. We were pleased to have Mr. Laurent Pelletier, the Managing Director of Veolia Hong Kong Office to share his insights on the Region's "Ecological Transformation with Veolia".

Veolia group aims to be the benchmark company for ecological transformation. With nearly 179,000 employees worldwide, the Group designs and provides game-changing solutions that are both useful and practical for water, waste and energy management.

In a close-door 90 minutes seminar held in French, Mr. Laurent Pelletier presented Veolia's contributions to making Hong Kong a more sustainable and greener city, hence a smarter city. Each day, Hong Kong produces nearly 3 million cubic metres of waste that are converted into 1,200 tonnes of sewage sludge. By 2030, this volume is expected to reach 2,000 tonnes per day. Up to 2015, the sludge was either buried underground or directly released into the sea. In Hong Kong, Veolia has designed, built, and operates the world's largest wastewater treatment plant: T•PARK, which provides a state-of-the-art, sustainable incineration technology solution to the massive and growing volume of sewage sludge.

Veolia also presents in the energy sector in Hong Kong: it operates the Kai Tak District Cooling System in Kai Tak and the Building Energy Services of the Hong Kong Data Centre of Digital Realty in Tseung Kwan O. Veolia Hong Kong is specialized in packaged building services and manages more than 18 projects in public and private hospitals, government sites and commercial buildings, with an ultimate vision to accelerate building energy performance. Veolia employs 820 people in Hong Kong.

In this impact café, we assessed the competitive advantages of international public-private partnerships in providing innovative and sustainable solutions to make Hong Kong a smarter and greener Region. It was an inspiring event with 36 HKBU students as participants: 23 international exchange students from France and 13 students from the BSocSc (Hons) in European Studies (French). We thank Mr. Laurent Pelletier for his fruitful sharing and Dr. Emilie Tran for her organization of this event.