“Of course, we built the plant for ecological reasons,” says CTO Ante Pavić. “But also due to our geographical position. The city of Zagreb has no wells for drinking water. It is located along the river Sava, and if this is destroyed, we will have no drinking water any more. It is not only our legal but also our moral obligation to clear all water that leads into the Danube system and into the Black Sea in order to ensure that people have healthy drinking water.”
Today, ZOV takes care of mechanical wastewater cleaning and biological wastewater cleaning including mud treatment, as well as treatment of the major wastewater channel and the biggest waste water pressure line from Novi Zagreb and of the so called home-country bridge.
The project was the first concessionary project for wastewater cleaning in Croatia in order to enable the city of Zagreb to meet the ecological standards of the EU in terms of environmental and water protection. The shareholders of ZOV are the German enterprises WTE Wassertechnik GmbH (WTE) from Essen, RWE Aqua GmbH from Mühlheim and the Croatian firm Vodoprivreda Zagreb d.d.
“The first milestone was to establish a company such as ZOV without being able to get technical support or engineering from Croatia,” says CFO Dr. Thomas Sichla from RWE, one of Germany’s biggest energy suppliers. He was appointed CFO six years ago. “In the beginning, the whole staff was German. Altogether, our owners made investments of around 351 million EUR.”
With a staff of 70, ZOV now achieves revenues of around 80 million EUR. Altogether, the standard of water cleaning is low in Croatia. Therefore, the city of Zagreb and ZOV have every reason to be proud of their plant and to continue their environmentally friendly strategy.
“Croatia is such a beautiful country with such splendid nature,” says Dr. Sichla. “I am German and I am very happy to work and live here. I know that many of our German staff do not want to go back because they really like living here. In fact, Europeans do not have to travel far to experience natural beauty. You can have it all here in Croatia.” “Here in Zagreb we even exceed the strict European regulations concerning wastewater treatment,” adds Mr. Pavić.
“Croatia is such a beautiful country with such splendid nature,” says Dr. Sichla. “I am German and I am very happy to work and live here. I know that many of our German staff do not want to go back because they really like living here. In fact, Europeans do not have to travel far to experience natural beauty. You can have it all here in Croatia.” “Here in Zagreb we even exceed the strict European regulations concerning wastewater treatment,” adds Mr. Pavić.