Sofia is second in Europe and 6th in the world in the 2021 City Water Optimization Index, ahead of cities like London and Copenhagen.   The ranking shows how successfully cities conduct the necessary policies, what infrastructure has been built and what measures are taken to optimize the use of the water resources.

The goal of the Index is to ensure that all end-users have access to safe, affordable and reliable water, as well as to contribute to the exchange of good practices between the cities which face different challenges, but manage to achieve good progress thanks to local solutions and policies.

The report and the Index are developed by Economist Impact, part of The Economist Group.

Full acces to the original report you can find here

The survey covers 47 quantitative and qualitative indicators divided into three categories - reliability, accessibility and sustainability.

In the overall ranking, Sofia comes 6th out of all 51 cities; 4th in the Reliability category with 94.9 points and 7th in the Accessibility category with 90.7 points. In these two groups Sofia is ahead of cities like Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, Los Angeles, etc.

Sofia is also among the top five also in terms of the percentage of population connected to the WSS network. The capital of Bulgaria comes fourth after Istanbul, Frankfurt, and Melbourne. 

The survey shows interesting correlations with respect to drinking water, public mindset towards the consumption of recycled water, the correlation between welfare and water quality, etc.

The findings from the global survey of the highly esteemed group for economic analyses and information The Economist mirror the daily operations and sustainable investments made in the WSS infrastructure of the capital by Sofiyska Voda AD operated by Veolia as well as the continuous improvement of the services since 2010.

This news also echoes with the latest announcement that Veolia Group retains the 2nd place in the ranking of the best international companies in the utility sector in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index with a score of 82/100 (Dow Jones Index measures the performance of leading companies on the New York Stock Exchange in four key sectors). It is the xxxth time in a row that Veolia is selected in that prestigious shortlist.

Veolia group aims to be the benchmark company for ecological transformation. With nearly 179,000 employees worldwide, the Group designs and provides game-changing solutions that are both useful and practical for water, waste and energy management. Through its three complementary business activities, Veolia helps to develop access to resources, preserve available resources, and replenish them. In 2020, the Veolia group supplied 95 million people with drinking water and 62 million people with wastewater service, produced nearly 43 million megawatt hours of energy and treated 47 million metric tons of waste. Veolia Environnement (listed on Paris Euronext: VIE) recorded consolidated revenue of €26.010 billion in 2020. www.veolia.com