Environmental Risk
The continuous development in the fields of transport infrastructure, energy production, industrial, residential and recreational sectors creates new challenges to local communities who are trying to balance the investment needs against the effects on the environment. Projects require effective environmental management through all stages from concept studies, through design and operation, to abandonment and recycling.
Environmental incidents are increasingly under scrutiny. Reactions to recent oil spills and GM-food contamination incidents reflect this attitude. Authorities and businesses therefore need to be ready to withstand close investigation, and protect both their reputation and their exposure to unlimited legal and financial liabilities. Businesses are also expected nowadays to lead by implementing Corporate Social Responsibility programmes.
In our approach we identify and understand the sources of risk within a business or organisation and apply risk-based methods and advanced technologies to ensure that consequences are assessed, and risks are managed in a cost-effective manner. Risk assessment can then help you to identify the critical hazards and prioritise actions to control this. Some risks may indicate urgent action. Other hazards may have risk levels that indicate the need for control and mitigation measures.
We look into the effect of political pressure groups when studying environmental issues as this may have significant impacts on decisions taken. It is worthwhile to note that not all environmental campaigns are justified despite the media sympathy they usually get. The Exxon Valdes incident and the Bhopal Disaster were indeed disasters. However the Greenpeace campaign for the Shell Platform was incorrect and if Shell did undertake full environmental risk assessment they could have chosen to resist the pressure from Greenpeace.
Our environmental
risk services include:
• Environmental impact assessment (EIA)
• Dispersion modelling
• Sediment acceleration and erosion assessment
• Flooding prediction and modelling
• Debris flow modelling
• Best available technology assessment (BAT)
• Political and media impacts