Veolia General Manager Named to City & State's Repsonsible 100 List in New York

Chris Graziano, vice president and general manager of Veolia’s New York water division, has been named to City & State’s 2023 Responsible 100, which recognizes New York’s 100 most outstanding corporate citizens who embody the core principles of social responsibility.

The recipients of the Responsible 100 designation were honored at a reception on December 14 at Sony Hall in Manhattan.

“Chris works tirelessly to improve the quality of life for our customers and employees, and is a champion for positive change throughout our New York communities,” said Karine Rougé, Veolia North America’s CEO of municipal water. “His 30-plus years of business experience and innate problem-solving skills enable him to effectively advocate for the kinds of positive, transformative change this award program is all about. We were excited – but not surprised – to learn Chris was selected for this prestigious recognition.”

As leader of Veolia’s New York division, Graziano and his team are responsible for water service to more than 500,000 homes and businesses in Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam and Tioga counties. The company has invested over $440 million in infrastructure enhancements across its service territory over the past four years.

Graziano was also the architect of one of the industry's most innovative customer water conservation programs. Launched in 2017, the program awards rebates as high as $100 for the purchase of water-efficient devices like toilets, washing machines and showerheads. To date, customers have redeemed more than 12,000 rebates that translate to over 188,000 gallons per day of water savings through increased water efficiency. The company also annually sponsors Veolia Conservation Awareness Night at the minor league baseball team based in Rockland and uses a mascot named Bailey the Beaver to market the program at large events and school functions.

In addition to helping customers save money while contributing to their community’s overall sustainability, Graziano has led a community relations program that has included more than $400,000 in contributions to nonprofit agencies over this past year with a focus on supporting programs and events that promote conservation, sustainability and the environment.

About Veolia North America: A subsidiary of Veolia group, Veolia North America (VNA) offers a full spectrum of water, waste and energy management services, including water and wastewater treatment, commercial and hazardous waste collection and disposal, energy consulting and resource recovery. VNA helps commercial, industrial, healthcare, higher education and municipality customers throughout North America. Headquartered in Boston, Mass., Veolia North America has more than 10,000 employees working at more than 350 locations across the continent.

About Veolia Group: Veolia Group aims to become the benchmark company for ecological transformation. Present on five continents with nearly 213,000 employees, the Group designs and deploys useful, practical solutions for the management of water, waste and energy that are contributing to a radical turnaround of the current situation. Through its three complementary activities, Veolia helps to develop access to resources, to preserve available resources and to renew them. In 2022, the Veolia group provided 111 million inhabitants with drinking water and 97 million with sanitation, produced 44 terawatt hours of energy and recovered 61 million tons of waste. Veolia Environnement (Paris Euronext: VIE) achieved consolidated revenue of 42.885 billion euros in 2022. www.veolia.com