Welcome in VEOLIA Environnement Finance areaWelcome in VEOLIA Environnement Finance areaParis, 8 April 2003. With the support of local authorities and its industrial customers, Vivendi Environnement gained its independence last December thanks to the growing confidence of leading investors and all its shareholders.
The company is embarking on the next stage in its long history with a new corporate identity. To reflect this, Henri Proglio will propose that the company's name should be changed to VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT at the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders on 30 April.
Henri Proglio decided to mobilise the full extent of the Group's internal resources so that this name change reflects its fresh impetus as it moves forward into a new era in its 150-year history. To this end, he asked the Group's Communications department to mobilise the company's various corporate services, including the legal, human resources and IT functions.
One key priority and a number of constraints influenced the choice of the Group's new name.
The priority was for the name to express the group's unique positioning, since it is the only company with worldwide reach focused exclusively on environmental services and able to deliver a full range of services across its four business segments, i.e. Water, Waste Management, Energy Services and Transportation.
Several constraints were taken into account:
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- From a technical standpoint, a decision was taken to: |
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- keep the same initials-VE-which have become a widely known and accepted symbol. |
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- From a semantic standpoint, the new name needed to have some meaning so that it naturally establishes itself.
- From a practical standpoint, the new name had to be easy to pronounce and read for the company's various audiences. The name was tested in 21 languages to make certain of this.
A team of specialist consultants led by Florence Hussenot (Hussenot Conseil) was entrusted with the task of finding a new name. She drew on all of her experience and employed tried and tested creative techniques.
The team of consultants set about their task by defining several themes reflecting the company's business activities and expertise, such as sustainable development, care and attention, protection, customisation, living standards, proximity, service, commitment and innovation, while looking to maintain some degree of continuity. In particular, a decision was taken to retain the classical Greek and Latin roots of "Vivendi".
To start with, the consultants attempted to come up with as many potential names as they could, before narrowing down the possibilities through a selection process.
Three hundred names were created from the themes that were defined at the outset.
Each consultant then continued the task, working independently using specialised tools and dictionaries.
In all, over five hundred names had been put forward by the end of the second stage.
The initial selection was based on the semantics of each name, a lexical and grammatical analysis, its rhythm, international dimension and register. This process whittled the candidates down to one hundred or so. Legal searches were then conducted (phase 1) to establish any prior use of these names in countries and business segments in which the Group operates.
As a result of this process, fifty names were presented to a steering committee chaired by Henri Proglio on 21 January 2003, which drew up a short-list of 10 names.
In-depth legal searches were carried out by the Group's legal department concerning these 10 names on the short-list, with the support of intellectual property specialists at Beau de Loménie and law firm Jones Days.
Legal searches for similar names (phase 2), followed by in-depth investigations (phase 3) paved the way for a strategy of purchase negotiations and coexistence with similar brand names. Of the remaining names that were free of restrictions, VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT was by far the most popular and was thus selected.
| The VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT name retains the same initials. VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT is derived from Aeolus, the keeper of the winds in Greek mythology. It evokes the company's fresh impetus and its commitment to the sustainable development of the planet, a key concept for the future, which means abiding by key ethical principles and pursuing a commitment to healthy labour relations. The reference to air is heightened by the first letter of the name, "V", which is the first letter of the French word for the wind ("vent"). The wind, which is always on the move, clean, transparent and rapid, is also a force symbolizing all our activities. The softness of the sounds expresses the company's close relationship with its customers, while the consonant patterns of the word VEOLIA evoke fluidity. |
The whole company, including the human resources, legal, internal and external communications, public relations and events, and IT functions, has been mobilised to implement the name change, in France and abroad. The top priority is to inform the company's employees. The 200,000 Group employees in Europe will find out the company's new name today as they will receive an animated e-mail from the Group's headquarters in Paris. They will also receive a letter from the Chairman together with a brochure presenting the new name, the Group's values, business activities and key figures.
Henri Proglio will also give a speech that will be broadcast live from Group headquarters in Paris to offices in 11 cities across France, as well as London and Frankfurt.
As far as the Group's customers are concerned, the headquarters will send out information only to its closest contacts and customers in the form of a letter from the Chairman.
News of the name change will be relayed by a network of 250 "ambassadors", who are responsible for ensuring that the message reaches the field by leveraging the network's reach.
These ambassadors, who are subsidiary, regional, site managers, heads of human resources and communications departments, met in Paris on 18 March where they were informed of the timetable for the name change and of the contents of the electronic communication kit, which will be made available to them. It contains a "brand video", the letter from the Chairman and brochures for employees and customers translated into several languages, corporate visual identity guidelines, headed notepaper and guidelines for business cards. It will be sent out this week over a secure extranet. In addition, they will also receive CD-Roms containing the same items, as well as sample T-shirts and balloons, which they can copy locally.
The new corporate visual identity will be unveiled at the AGM on 30 April.
The launch of the new name will be backed up by an advertising campaign comprising newspaper advertisements and billboard posters.
This campaign, which is being handled by the Jean et Montmarin agency, will start on 4 June to coincide with Sustainable Development week, which is being organised in France by the French Ministry for Sustainable Development.
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The Group's key figures for 2002
- 2002 revenues of €30.079 billion |
Analyst and institutional investor contact: Nathalie Pinon +33 1 71 75 01 67
US Investor contact: Brian Sullivan +(1) 630 371 2749
