Veoliaforce skills sponsorship

Humanitarian emergencies and development projects

The Veoliaforce skills sponsorship program is a lever for action specific to the Veolia Foundation, making the expertise of Veolia employees available to NGO partners.

To do what?

In a humanitarian context, the challenge is to ensure the fastest possible access to essential services. Whether it's supplying water to victims of an earthquake, hurricane or tsunami...

Managing the sanitation of refugee camps following population movements. Whether it's healing the wounds of climate change by finding access to water in regions affected by water stress... The pool of Veoliaforce volunteers, the Veolia Group's volunteer employees, can respond to a wide range of situations.

Veoliaforce volunteers come from all Veolia divisions and entities around the world, and are trained to intervene. During dedicated training courses, they familiarize themselves with the latest emergency intervention techniques and learn to work together in conditions close to the field.

When do we intervene?

When the Foundation is approached by one of the key players in international solidarity, such as the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Médecins Sans Frontières, the Red Cross, Solidarités International, Première Urgence, Action contre la faim, etc., for whom it has become a privileged partner over the years.

The Foundation also formalized its cooperation with Unicef in 2009, signing a "stand-by partner" agreement with the UN agency. Under this agreement, Veoliaforce volunteers can be mobilized at any time during humanitarian crises to provide Unicef with their expertise in supplying drinking water to disaster-stricken populations.

With what equipment?

The Veolia Foundation has developed a range of equipment for the humanitarian sector. These include Aquaforces, mobile water purification units designed for use in emergency situations and in the field. Robust and adaptable, they are regularly tested and deployed in the field with our partners: Médecins Sans Frontières, Médecins du Monde, the French Red Cross, and the Crisis and Support Center of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.... User manuals are available in several languages, enabling as many people as possible to get to grips with Aquaforces in just a few hours.

For resource and effluent analysis, the Water Analysis Field Lab (WAFL) and the Faecal Sludge Field Laboratory (FSFL) are also the fruit of research and development work carried out by the Foundation. 

  • The WAFL is a mobile laboratory for analyzing drinking water and wastewater quality in the field.
  • The FSFL enables a wide range of parameters required for monitoring fecal sludge treatment plants to be analyzed in a degraded environment.

Work is also underway to develop an emergency sanitation solution based on the hygienization of fecal sludge through a methanization process.

What is skills sponsorship?

A Veolia employee spends his or her working hours on a mission for the Veolia Foundation. Previously trained in humanitarian emergencies and in the use of intervention equipment designed by the Foundation, he or she may be in the field for several weeks, or provide his or her expertise remotely. The Foundation coordinates and pays for logistics and travel expenses; the volunteer continues to be paid as if he or she were working in his or her usual job.

Aquaforces for drinking water treatment

Discover the latest addition to the Aquaforce range: Aquaforce RO for treating brackish water.

Saniforce for treating faecal sludge


Discover Saniforce, a solution for treating faecal sludge in humanitarian contexts.

Veoliaforce at a glance

Key figures

450 volunteers

250 missions

20 years of experience

Some Veoliaforce missions on video:

2023: Veoliaforce mission to Ukraine to train teams from the NGO Solidarités International in the deployment of Aquaforces 2000.

2016: Hurricane Matthew hits Haiti; the Veolia Foundation intervenes to restore drinking water with the NGO Acted.

2017: the French West Indies are swept by Hurricane Irma. The story of an exceptional mobilization...