Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Bloomberg Business Week, insight from the reporters and editors that bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio.
It is Bloomberg Business Week. That's Carol Masser. I'm Tim Stenevek. We talked a little bit about Japan. We did Minski trip in Japan. Yeah, let's bring it a little closer.
To home, a little bit closer.
Okay, talk Mexico and Canada, specifically our neighbor Canada, because President Donald Trump signaled plans to impose previously threatened tariffs on as much as twenty five percent on Mexico and Canada by February first. He reiterated his contention that America's closest neighbors and largest trading partners are letting undocumented migrants and drugs flood into the United States. In Mexico have said they'd retaliate against American goods if Trump slaps tariffs
on them. The USMCA, by the way, it's that trade deal that Trump negotiated during his first term that's up for review in twenty twenty six. Marion Carter is principal at Earnscliffe Strategies. It's a firm that does government relations. They do strategic communications and more for many companies, including those US companies that do business in Canada as well as those Canadian counterparts, those that do business and operate in the US. Marianne joins US from Key West, Florida
this afternoon. Marian, good to have you with us. What are you hearing from your clients, those Canadian companies that operate here in the US and also the US companies that have business in Canada? What are you hearing from them right now as this threat of tariff looms?
I think, thanks Fritall, thanks for having me. There's a lot of concerns, you know, as you both know, business like certainty. And when President Trump even provided the mere threat of putting on tariffs several weeks ago, many questions were when, how is this just a negotiating tactic looking ahead to the review of USMCA in twenty twenty six.
But now he's come out and said that as at February first, he intends to impose these tariffs, and I think there is significant concern on both sides of the border regarding how this will impact consumers directly, but also the cost of business increasing.
I did mention that the President said that America's closest neighbors and largest trading partners are letting undocumented migrants and drugs flood into the US. Our team here at Bloomberg reporting that last year there were just over a million encounters with illegal border crossers by US border patrol at the US Mexico border, but in Canada they were only twenty two, three hundred and sixty nine, so not many.
That's according to data from the CPB. When it comes to fentanyl, the US Border Service sees about twenty thousand, six hundred pounds of fetanyl at the Mexico US border and then fifty pounds at the Canada US border.
All Right, So that's interesting for a little perspective in terms of the concerns that have been voiced by President Trump. And then you know, in terms of what we might see in terms of tariffs.
Marian, I mean, there are things.
That President Trump will say, and then there's the things that actually get done, and then they're you know, so I am curious what you're hearing from your clients, the questions that they are raising, and what people think ultimately will result from the US in terms of any kind of tariffs against Canada. I mean, we know there's so much trade that goes back and forth in the auto sector, certainly, and so we know that ultimately that would be perhaps
paid by US consumers. So I'm just curious, and that's just one aspect of the trade between the two nations, right.
I think it's important to distinguish that I'm hearing different things. I think business understands that this could be catastrophic for our integrated economies, particularly in the auto sector, but also as the expert oil and energy to the US and as well as critical minerals. But I think Canadians are very clear that the government and I think we're fairly unified that if tariffs are imposed on Canadian business, that Canada is not going to sit idly and watch it happen.
Canada will push back quite significantly, and in terms of counter tariffs, impose American goods and services, and I think Canadian business, my clients least stand behind that. However, in the US side, and unless my clients, but I think generally there is not as much understanding from the Americans
on how reliant they are on the Canadian economy. I think auto sector is pretty well understood that I don't know in some of those key states that some people realize their jobs are significantly reliant on goods going back and forth between the Canadian American borders, or if there are if we do find ourselves in a trade war, that the price of gas is going to go up at the pumps and on the oil side, at least we export a lot of those raw materials and then
things are refined in the US. So it's unlike similarly the China issue, where it's more of the finished good. It would completely disrupt the American supply chain dynamic in several industries, and I don't think it's well understood that it will impact their day to day living. And so I hear quite different things. And I think that's naturally also because Canada knows a lot about the United States.
The United States is a superpower, and we just we tend to understand the trading relationship and how much that is important not only friends and neighbors, but it's very good for our economy. It's also good for the American economy. So I think, if anything, I'm hearing from American clients that there needs to be more education and proactivity from the Canadians, both on the political and business slides, to make them understand how this could impact the business in the US as well.
Do you, I mean, how seriously are you taking this threat?
Look, I think everyone's pretty aware that only President Trump knows what he's going to do, and so I think people are recognizing that it it, it could be a significant reality. I think why there's concern is that so much of his campaign had relied on bringing those American jobs back, particularly in the steel industry, et cetera, et cetera, and so I think he's pretty serious about doing that.
But I think it's a matter of we we just we just don't know based on you know, having seen him in office previously, and uh, when the NAFTA review happened under his tenure, we saw how challenging that was in terms of negotiation. So I think it's people taking it very seriously because it ultimately would create a serious recession in Canada and lots of jobs. But I think where there is relief in some respects as we don't know he could just wake up one day and say,
actually am deciding not to do this. But since he said the February first deadline a couple of days ago, I think there's a lot of nervousness that that could be a stark reality in a couple of weeks.
Do you see this as the threat on Mexico and Canada being equal in the sense of like the chance that Trump will follow through on those Do you see it with China more so, like in terms of trade priorities. How are you thinking about it?
I think Canada and the US are pretty aligned, I think on navigating issues around China that pertains to national security and trade issues. I think what's been problematic, unfortunately you had raised earlier the immigration dynamics in Betanol, like Canada is just not Mexico and vice versa, and I think we are the Canadians are getting lumped into some of the major challenges on the issues in Mexico and
it's not as impactful. But I think unfortunately we're coming as one size fit all deal and I think that's just by the nature of the history with NAFTA. So I think that we haven't really seen any distinguishing between Mexico and Canada. We're often lumped together, even though I think it's pretty clear that the issues related to Trader are quite different.
All Right, We're going to leave it there.
Hey, Marianne, thank you so much. Great to get some time with you. She's principal at Earnscliffe Strategy.
It's a firm that does government.
Relations, strategic communications, and a lot more for a lot of companies, including those US companies that do business in Canada as well as some of the Canadian companies that operate in the US.
So a really smart.
Perspective in terms of what may or may not be in terms of tariffs between coming from the US to Canada.
Well, you might remember just yesterday we covered this news. The MLB said it ordered its employees to return the office five days a week. The move makes MLB the latest US employer to require workers to return to their desks more often, joining Amazon, AT and t JP, Morgan Chase and more. And in fact, just in the last forty eight hours or so, President Donald Trump has also
ordered federal government workers back to their office. Maybe some of those employees Carol asking themselves as they get back to their desks, what am I doing here? Why am I at this desk? Why am I at this job? After all? The last few years have been pretty wild. Yeah, we've got global unrest, we had a pandemic. A lot of people are thinking differently about work life balance, right, and yet here I am back at work five days a week.
So are you asking why are we here?
Well, it's a question that Jennifer Moss is asking. She's a journalist and author. She's been on our air before. She's got a new book out. It's called why are We here? Creating a work culture that everyone wants? She joins us from Kitchener, Ontario in Canada. Welcome back, Jennifer. How are you.
I'm great? Thank you. I think we're all asking that question.
Why do you think Why do you think we're asking that question now more so than ever?
Well, there's been a bunch of reasons, and you named a few, but I think it's just an existential question for an existential time. And you know, I've been talking about the future of work, what that looks like. I think we've sort of jumped into the multiverse of work and it was just jumped this timeline, and you know, everything throughout the pandemic, throughout the last couple of years
has exploded. Work was already not working that great beforehand, but but it again, like a crisis, just exacerbates these existing problems, and so there's high burnout. People are feeling this level of on we this level of dissatisfaction and detachment, and a lot of it is because we just we went through this mortality facing event and it's changed our priority structures about work and life and how they fit into each other.
All right.
I can just see an older generation saying, oh, come on, folks, work is about paying the bills.
Work is about you know, putting a roof for her.
People say, work is a four letter word, you know exactly.
So it's just.
What has really changed. You know.
People work, yes, to find fulfilling careers and all that great stuff, no doubt about it. But ultimately it's about supporting yourself, isn't it, or you know, making sure your family is supported.
Well, what happens when you go through something so cataclysmic in your life. Your brain does this really interesting thing. It starts to reorganize its priorities because it actually does subconsciously think that life is short, and so when you are doing something that feels toxic or it's exhausting, or you feel depleted by it, it starts to become reorganized as a lower priority. And that's why you're seeing so
much pushback. And you know, we used to have a trans actual relationship with work, but I've been saying that, you know, really since the advent of the car phone, when work became something else and it moved into our personal lives, that relationship became a social contract. So employers want us to be able to work anywhere, everywhere, at
all times. Well, then they have to fulfill that, you know, their end of the bargain, and that it has become this social relationship and it's not just transactional anymore.
So I guess the question is what adjustment people are making as a result of this. We certainly saw that happen during the pandemic. A lot of people who thought they'd work remotely or maybe just said, you know what, this isn't worth it to me. I'm want to move somewhere else in the country. I want to do something different. Is that shift still happening? Are people moving, are people making big life changes later in their career. As a result of this existential crisis.
Well, when you look at the people that have mobility, it's your top talent, it's the ones you really want to stay, they're the ones leaving when they feel this level of dissatisfaction. They'll go to a place that has the work life balance and all of those other you know, that criteria that they're looking for. And what happens is those that are not able to have that mobility are
staying and they are detached. So, you know, the great detachment is what Gallop's calling it, where people are actually so actively disengaged and unhappy at work. They're less productive and they're less impactful on your bottom line. They're actually
detracting from your bottom line. So it feels good that we are seeing, yes, this level of mobility change, but people that are really good that you want to stay, are leaving, and then you have this glood of people that are unhappy and they're the ones that you know
are going to impact whether you are competitive. We're also seeing, you know, right now we're going into the silver tsunami where you know, peak sixty five, where so many people are turning sixty five and they're not choosing to return, they're leaving. We're seeing mass early retirements, which is changing the labor force. We're seeing young cohorts decide to go into freelancing and not opt into that corporate world. And we're also seeing women exiting and moving into a part
time work. So the labor force is definitely shifting, and we need to be careful about, you know, saying, Okay, well, at least we have that mobility managed. No, we don't. If we have people there that are disengaged and unhappy, it's actually worse than if they quit.
All right, Well, Tim and I are doom because I'm looking at page sixty one. Eating lunch with others pays off. One study found that participants who ate together we're more cooperative and trusting compared to those who did not. Eating with others also improved tenure and enhanced overall work group performance. Actually, maybe we're not due because we do eat lunch together often, But we're at our desk.
Are you saying that workers curios? Carol, that's what I eat, Ceio, there's my lunch.
Although Tim Saidiz brings us a sandwich into the studio, so we're kind of continuing to eat lunch together.
I have a banana.
I mean, what are you saying, Is it that people need to take a work they need to take a break rather and go sit on a terrace, go to the office lunch room, or go outside and go actually sit and have lunch together, which is never going to happen because we're kind of busy.
But that's okay.
Yeah, I mean, there's a whole bunch of things that you're saying there. One of the things that I write about in the book is time poverty. We're so time starved. And this is really great research by Lorgers out of the London School of Economics, and she says that time starvation is really causing these issues of now we're sitting ten hours a day. There's this rise of it's called dining al deesco, which is what you're describing.
That's funny rise.
I've been for my whole career.
The dining al deesco is one of my favorite definitions that have come out in the last er terms that have come out in the last couple of years. But it really is only twenty minutes. And that Cornell study that you cited and that I include in the book is really just twenty minutes. It's twenty minutes to improve culture. It's not every day that we have to do this.
It's really just focusing on rebuilding that muscle of community of get a stepping up, you know, up and away from our desk, finding a way to make the experience of work a little bit better. The reason why people are so resistant to these return to office mandates is that they're going into the office and it feels exactly like what they could be doing at home. If we want to change that dynamic and make the office a place where people want to be, we have to bring
the fun back. Going to work right now is like going to school without art, gym or recess. The fun has left the building and we need to bring a bit of that back or else people will just feel like, what is the point Why am I here?
I have to say I do miss snack time and nap time. I'm just gonna put it out there.
When you remember that from school, don't you.
Remember that we were little, we were young, but snack time we used to have the little milk cartons.
You never no, I don't know.
I was such a deprived child. I don't start. I don't have memories from back then. Really, that's for a different conversation.
I favorite great. I remember saying grade yeah, miss Barbetta.
Oh my gosh, Jennifer, what's wrong with me?
Feel like you had a really sad childhood?
Great childhood. Don't get me wrong.
I just like, yeah, great childhood. I just I know.
I mean all I remember is like playing outside.
Yeah, wow, Oh I did.
Go to a school.
Bring that to work.
Then I will say, maybe.
I don't play outside for we do, take we don't.
Maybe I don't remember because now that you mention it, I went to this school where they didn't allow sugar in your This is like California in you know, eighties and nineties, we were all into preservative so like you weren't even allowed to bring like jam or jelly on your sandwich.
And listen.
One thing I want to ask you about is you also get into DEI And it does feel like there's a real pushback. We've seen it in the corporate community. We're seeing it from uh President Trump. We're seeing it in the federal government.
D I d I.
Is that good for making us feel more connected?
Or so far? The way it's been to implemented not so good. Give us some thoughts here.
Yeah, I dig into the research in the book, and DEI, I think has faced a lot of problems because it has been a trial and error kind of experiment, and we have to expect that it's not going to be completely figured out. We're dealing with really long term, institutional millennia type problems. You can't just fix it with certain programming or you know, or something that's going to be othering people, which is a big problem with a lot of the anti bias training that we've seen out there.
So it hasn't done well, and so it's very easy to attack and say, oh, it's just it's just problematic. But if we don't have a sense of belonging inside of organizations, how are we going to hit those shared goals? How are we going to have a shared vision? If people feel excluded, then that's a real problem. And I understand, Okay, well, maybe DEI in its current form is not working as well as we'd like. It's not optimal, but there's a
lot of learning we can do. And if we do eliminate all diverversity in the way that we think about creating teams and organizations. It's going to be catastrophic. You're going to lose you know, innovation, You're going to create group think. You're going to have people that all look and sound the same coming up with the same ideas.
And that doesn't make you competitive or innovative. And so we need to take a step back and not just cut DEI entirely out, but rethink how we do it better and have a bit of grace period for it to take its time to be more functional and optimal, because right now it's just it still is in a trial and iteration stage.
We had you on a few years ago, back in twenty twenty one for your previous book, The Burnout Epidemic, and I'm wondering if you see how you see that a few years later, especially now as so many companies are requiring people to be back in the office five days a week. Do you think that's a mistake.
Absolutely, it is a mistake. I mean you look at Nicholas Bloom Stanford economist Mark ma he's a professor of Pittsburgh. They've done a really extensive research study along with their team and have found that if you are really, you know, wanting to be a purely capitalist. You're looking at the the the economic reasons or rationale, or revenue or shareholder impact rationale for work mode. It's hybrid. Is the number
one best way for people to work. It's not fully remote necessarily some do it okay, but it's not five days in the office. It's a bit of both and giving people the sense of downtime and having flexibility. What we've determined is flexibility is a right, not a perk. These days, it used to be a perk, but now that's changed. People feel like, this is my right to have flexibility. And so when we got to make it seem like a perk, it ends up just being toned deaf.
We get to run good stuff.
Journalist and author Jennifer Moss her new book why Are We here?
Creating a work culture everyone wants this is proper.
So.
It was just last year that the US Environmental Protection Agency the EPA says no level of exposure to PIFIS is safe and imposed its first ever drinking water limits on them, requiring water utilities to remove nearly all of the substances from tap water. And it's a move expected to cost billions of dollars to implement. The compounds are found in high levels in the water of many communities
around the world. At the same time, we've done some reporting on wastewater treatment plants that we can get into with our next guest. So let's get to it, because she knows a lot about this space. Estelle brushleyon Off is the CEO of Violia. It's the global environmental services company dealing with water in waste management. Is based in Paris and it's ADRs traded in the United States. They have a market cap of around twenty one billion dollars.
She is with us from Phoenix, Arizona. I'm apologize. I'm sure I've like mangled your name and the company name.
So help me out here. But Estella, it is good to have you here with us. Tell us a little bit more.
About what your company does and kind of what is waste management today?
No one, you actually did perfectly right. Congratulations for that.
So the OL yeah, is a fourteen five hundred company, as you said, listing in Paris, but we operate across the globe, including in the US, where we are you know, in the top three of our industry and has this waste or in water management and water technology is in the same way with the big, big growth opportunities in this country, including the one you mentioned earlier on which is p fast removal and treatment to protect human health. Another one being you know, everything to do with what
Oscar city. We are the water company in the world, operating in many countries, so we've learned from what we've experienced, whether it would be in Australia or you know, in the southern part of Europe, in the Middle East, and actually in the US as well. So we are leveraging from this global foot prin to a for our customer the best in class solution to tackle you know, like reducing water footprint, recycling or removing politans.
How big of a business now is removing p f us, Like what portion of your revenue comes to that versus other services?
So I guess you know it's a fast growing but still limited. It was zero two years ago. We will finish the year twenty four with more than two hundred million and we anticipated to be more one billion by the end of the decade. And when I say bye, I hope it's before twenty thirty. But you know, removing politants, you know, we can talk about p first, but there
are many other politans which removing every single day. We are the number one pultry remover in the world, present in the US, in Europe, in Australia, in the Middle East and everywhere every day, very fast growing. We went from having a one billion business to more than five billion dollar business now and still moving very very fast.
So I am curious about PIFAs forever chemicals, I mean, the cleanup of it.
Is it even possible?
It seems so embedded in our society and water, in products, actually in our bodies already.
Is it even possible to make a difference or.
Is at least is it too late maybe for the.
Current generations, but maybe something that can be affixed for future generations.
So I guess I would leave you know, the public authorities and public bodies to decide, you know, what are the priorities and what's our the series harm and the other places where you know, it's a little bit less problematic for human health, but when it comes to typically safe drinking water, you know, we have the technologies and
solutions to remove pretty much. So every single PIFAs in every single circumstances, with varus technologies, we innovate quite a lot to be able to concentrate them and then to treat them into a high tem pressure incinerator, which we have a few in this country for instance. But I think you know there is an element which is not only to be able to technically do that, but to
make it affordable. So there is efficiency here to derive solution which in the ends are just what you need, but not too much so just but you need to remove the harm. But it's not one technology. If it's all you have to indicate and to design solution depending on the concentration, depending on the geography. And we have an end to end a solution for pfs and not for called bond p fast, which is you know, taking off very very fast in the US and in other countries.
To say, how do you I'm just curious, how do you think about this life cycle of not just forever chemicals but other pollutants. Are we to the point right now where we know what we should and should not have going down the drain that we get to a point where we will not have to remove stuff from water within our lifetimes or is this just getting worse? Is it going the wrong way?
Actually I would debate, I would debate that we are removing and measuring even pollutants which you know, we're already there years and years ago, but we didn't even detect or we didn't even measure, and we you know, didn't know how to treat. So we know how to treat and measure things now which we didn't five or ten years ago. So they are not necessarily new pollutants. But you know, we are moving in the right direction as in, you know, we know how to treat them. So innovation
is helpful to go in the right direction. And so there are a lot of things which were pollutants which we're talking about a lot in the seventies on the eighties, which now are behind us because you know, we've moved to the next one. So I guess human progress, he's helping us to tackling more and more challenges. So I think, you know, we we have a positive effect on you know, like all the innovation on the way we can tackle these type of positions.
You know, you've been at your company for about two decades a still, and I am curious about how waste management has changed in terms of the processes.
So West management to change a lot in the last twenty years. You're right, I will separate my twenty years here in Villia very soon. And you know, because we used to be very like a hole and dump and now there is a lot we can recycle now which we didn't even know how to technically, and of course nobody was really I guess, aware of the potential problem to create. So I think I've seen, for instance, now in this country we know how to recycle electrical batteries.
As you can imagine, this is not anything I would have thought of twenty years ago when I joined the company, because there was not even electric cars, let alone you know, being able to recycle them and to find back you know, the presarce metals which are embedded into those batteries, so nikaelkbatt Anthio. Another example was the pollutant as I mentioned, which we are able to treat now and thanks to innovation and five years ago, ten years ago, we were
not able to treat them. But I guess the big big thing for me is the realization which I can see everywhere close the globe was the last week in the Emirates of Water is absolutely on social services and a social elements not only for your daily life but as well for industries and for agriculture. I'm in Arizona today, I will visit a micro electronic and micro conductor site from TSMC in which custom of flowers and you know what,
if you want chip manufacturing, you'll absolutely need water. So the fact of being able to recycle water to remove polite and soft water, even on industrial site like that one, has become absolutely paramount. And that's something which.
We were choking about years ago.
Yeah, now it's real, it's become real. It's for real.
Do we get to the point though, and I'm wondering, you supplied more than one hundred and thirty one hundred million people a year with drinking water, more than one hundred million with waste water services. On the water subject, the drinking water part, you're in an area of the country right now that doesn't have a lot of water. We're seeing fires in southern California continue to burn and in fact new fires crop up due to the dry
conditions there. Do you think that we get to a point within our lifetimes where water becomes this scarce enough resource that people are going to start moving away from these desirable places to live areas that are just running out of water.
I won't comment from the desire of the population in the next five to ten years. That will be probably too difficult to incipate. But what I can tell you is I'm not talking about the future. We're talking about now. Last year alone, eighty percent of the American population experiens wa Oscar City. So I'm not talking about the future. I'm talking about it's happening now, And I'm not talking
only about Arizona or California. Eighty percent of the American population goes across the country, and if I may across, you know, like a political divide across you know, economical divide. You know, it concerns every single of American almost and I think that's why. You know, the solutions we can offer and what we've developed thanks to innovation and thanks to our worldwide footprint, is not only helpful, but is much and more. That's why you Novlia, I think has
a great future in this country. Already the very presents, as I said, but a great potential. Good food.
You know, it's interesting when you talk about water viscosity, right, that's how water resists flowing right, or changes like this is important climate changes team kind of touched upon in a big way. The impact that that is having and the way the world is going at this point, what makes you a little.
Bit nervous about our access to water?
I guess you know. Climate change is not only about warming. It's about extreme events being more often and more intense. But it droughts or floodings or hurricanes or mega fires like we are seeing in South California today. So we have to anticipate those events because they're happening here now and they will be even more frequent and more intense. And the direct consequence of those defense is on water.
So water is the subject of adaptation to climate change, because climate change means too much slaughter or too little water, or not at the right time in the year, or not of the right quality. That's why we have to adapt. And the big hope of WISH would have that every single lot of cherishes water as opposed to waste it.
It's a precious resource and we have therefore to do a bit more about water conservation, to think about the water footprint of say, as I said, chips manufacturing, they are really much into what is my water footprint and how can I reduce it? That's great through to recycling of water. You know, water is to produce to be only used once, so recycle. It is part of the mix of solution. We are developing more on this.
Country where what area of your business is poised for the most growth.
So it really has the sways which means pulutantry, moval, and everything to do with water technologies and operating networks. So there are the two big ones in the US and actually across the globe because as I said, what I've just described for this country applies to many many other places because this is the reality of the fact that we all face as human beings, and it potentially impacts our quality of life as well as jobs and manufacturing.
So if we want to still have industries, they need water. If we still want to have agriculture and phil the population, we need water, and so on and so forth. So I think those are the two which have the most growth what we call our growth booster in our strategic plan, and those are really really you know, progressing super well as we speak.
Just last question we're thinking about with the new administration here in the United States, President Trump pulling out from the Paris Climate Accord, has also ordered federal agencies to immediately pause the spending of money from the Inflation Reduction Act, which is one that provided billions of dollars in subsidies to clean energy and other climate initiatives. What impact do you think that has overall? What impact, if any, does
it have on your company? And just have about a minute left here.
So to keep very simple, Veolia has no contract with the central government and we have no subsidies of the ARRAY, so direct impact none on that front. The second thing I was to say is, you know, we work at local level with industries or with municipalities and the population in across you know, this country whatever. Again, there are political orientation. Absolutely are desperate to have a clean drinking
water when they open their tap without pipacin. And we've tested that, we have surveyed that in the US and seventy percent of the American population is very anxious about fast in that a drinking water. And it's irrespective of if they are Democrat or Republican. So this is really pushing, pushing, very very fast, and that's why we are really supported in terms of groups.
That is a disturbing statistic and sobering.
Estelle's so glad we got time with you, really really appreciate it. Estelle brushly enough. She is the CEO of Veolia. It's the global environmental services company. As we said, they deal with waste management, water management, joining us here. Based in Paris, but she is in Phoenix, Arizona today