GreenCentre announces major new international industry partner

Thursday, Nov. 26

GreenCentre announces major new international industry partner

Kingston, ON -- GreenCentre Canada has signed on a major worldwide water services company as its latest industry partner in the pursuit of Green Chemistry breakthroughs that can be commercially developed as industrial technologies that will benefit the environment.

Veolia Water Solutions and Technologies (VWS), based in Paris, France, is the technical solutions provider of Veolia Water, which in turn is the water division of Veolia Environnement. VWS, a world leader in water treatment, is a specialized provider of technological solutions and design-build services to meet the needs of public authorities and industrial companies.  Comprised of 130 business units in 57 countries, VWS has 8,900 employees worldwide and recorded revenues of $ 3.7 billion (US$) in 2008.

“This new collaboration with VWS, an internationally engaged company, is a significant milestone for GreenCentre,” says Executive Director Rui Resendes. “We are extremely pleased that they see the value we can contribute to their work in maximizing the world population’s access to safe drinking water and wastewater treatment. Through their partnership with us, they will have one-stop preferential access to Canada’s Green Chemistry discoveries.”

GreenCentre Canada brings together leading Green Chemistry researchers from universities across Canada, industry partners and commercialization experts in a common goal of identifying and developing clean, less energy-intensive alternatives to traditional chemical products and manufacturing processes.  Its collaborative commercialization ‘ecosystem’ includes everything from assessment, scale-up and testing to intellectual property protection, business management and financial resources.

“The GreenCentre concept that brings together all stakeholders for the commercialization of green technology is quite unique and very attractive to VWS,” says Nathalie Martin-Ionesco, Water Treatment Additives Business Development Manager at Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies.  “We are pleased to be a part of this organization.”

Today’s GreenCentre partnership announcement at Queen’s University’s Biosciences Building was made along with news that PDS, a company that originated in inventions made at Queen’s, will expand in light of its new affiliation with VWS. 

The VWS partnership becomes GreenCentre’s sixth industry sponsorship.  The Centre already has strong representation from Canadian and international companies,  including NOVA Chemical Corp., Fielding Chemical Technologies, Polycorp Ltd. , Pressure Chemical Co. and Albonia Innovative Technologies Ltd.

 The GreenCentre model is unprecedented in North American for the way in which it involves its industry partners directly in the decision-making process about which technologies are selected for commercialization as well as in a governance role.

 Founded by PARTEQ Innovations at Queen’s University less than a year ago, the Centre has received major financial support amounting to more than $20 million from both the Ontario and federal government, which has designated it a National Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research, and has already received more than 65 technology disclosures related to scientific breakthroughs from university researchers.