As a general rule, the price structure, decided on at a local level, is broken down into a fixed part (subscription) and a variable part based on the water consumption of each customer.

Three main factors are taken into account:

Supplying billions of cubic meters of drinking water from a resource of variable quality 24/7 requires the implementation of a high-value-added treatment process over a series of different stages:

• building and operating the complex systems to abstract the water and treat it in order to make it fit to dink

• monitoring the quality of the clean water

• maintaining the water mains network

• finally managing all customer and consumer services (registering new customers, meter readings, billing and requests for information)

Wastewater also accounts for an ever increasing part of the bill paid by consumers.

Globally, the quality of the water released back into the natural environment, after having been used by consumers, has now become a major public health issue. Treating wastewater is now seen as a basic requirement.

In order to provide an effective treatment process and to comply with new standards currently in force, it is and will be essential for local authorities to invest heavily, primarily in the construction, operation and maintenance of sewerage systems and in the construction and proper operation of wastewater treatment plants. More and more often, these plants now have a recycling phase in order to give a new use to the water.

Part of the water bill is used to pay taxes and service charges. The money collected in this way is earmarked for public or para-state bodies whose brief most often includes:

• the protection of natural water resources;
• financing the equipment required to supply drinking water or for sanitation in order to protect the natural environment.

In this way, certain taxes may also be used to finance initiatives to maintain the quality of waterways (rivers, canals or watercourses).

In most countries of the world, the price of water is set by the public authorities. It is they who primarily set the different block tariffs. To this end, Veolia Water uses its expertise and the leeway it has in order to advise pubic authorities on how to adapt the pricing policy, so that it is in keeping with how much the local community can afford to pay.

Working alongside the authorities, Veolia Water also endeavours to come up with solutions which enable the most disadvantaged to benefit from its quality services. Spreading payments, charging prices that are lower than the purchase price for some of the block tariffs or reducing tariffs, these are some of the solutions that may be deployed. They are used by regional local authorities for people on low incomes.

These "social tariffs" have been rolled out in numerous countries and regions on five continents.