An agreement to limit carbon emissions the international community is working towards at a climate summit in Copenhagen must be "reachable" and "reasonably possible," the chief executive officer of French utility Suez Environnement (SEV.FR) said Friday.
An agreement to limit carbon emissions the international community is working towards at a climate summit in Copenhagen must be "reachable" and "reasonably possible," the chief executive officer of French utility Suez Environnement (SEV.FR) said Friday.

"The objectives need to be ambitious as climate warning needs to be addressed, but they also need to be reachable, reasonably possible," Jean-Louis Chaussade told Dow Jones Newswires during a phone interview from Copenhagen .

Chaussade traveled to Copenhagen to meet Friday with other executives of utilities and energy companies, such as Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of French state-controlled nuclear company Areva (CEI.FR), Gerard Mestrallet, chairman and CEO of French utility GDF Suez (GSZ.FR), and Jim Rogers, CEO of U.S.-based Duke Energy Corp. (DUK).

"We executives expect from governments a certain number of frameworks so that we can work on long-term projects," Chaussade said. "We need to know what the costs will be, because it is difficult to plan over 30 years without knowing what the carbon costs could be."

Chaussade declined to comment on the European Union's proposal to push for a cut of 30% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Beyond Copenhagen , Chaussade underlined other environmental issues, such as the booming global population--expected to reach around 9 billion within the next 40 years--water treatment and distribution, and non-renewable resources.

Suez Environnement, the world's second utility in terms of sales after France 's Veolia Environnement (VE), has introduced additional services to answer demand from customers for energy savings and lower carbon emission, Chaussade said.

The demand for these services is substantial, even though they are more expensive than traditional ones, Chaussade said.

He declined to elaborate on the price of these services.

"There is an added value, and people buy these services because it answers some of their environmental needs," Chaussade said. "In the end, they represent savings, mostly on energy... They can't be considered as additional spending, but rather as investments," he said.

Suez Environnement has also invested in research and development to address environmental issues, such as burning waste as a source of energy or desalination of water to answer the increasing demand for drinking water, he said.

Suez Environnement supplies drinking water to 76 million of people around the world, wastewater treatment services to 44 million of people, according to the group's own figures.

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