3 Best Tips to Select an Environmental Consultancy

There is rising emphasis on the protection of environment these days. Many countries are coming out with a set of rules and regulations pertaining to environment. Project developers these days need to ensure that there are certain standards that are maintained. Thankfully, there are environmental consultancies available which have made all their job easier. These consultancies consist of top-quality environmental professionals, who guide the project developers through the entire process. Let us take a look at some of the things that you need to consider when hiring the services of an Environmental Consultancy.

Do some research

Before you go about calling up the consultancies around in town, make sure that you do some preparation on your part. What is that you need to do? Well, make sure that you have got all the things ready for discussion, once you start interviewing prospective consultants. For example, if you are development a project, then you need to have the complete plan of the project ready with you. There are certain other things that you can find out too about the project site. For example, get a fair idea about the terrain of the area. Similarly, you can get to know about the history of the site. Was there a factory building existing there earlier? Do you see any tell-tale signs of pollution in the vicinity? What about the flora and fauna in the area? While you need not be an expert in these areas of study, but having at least the basic information will help you when you actually interview consultants.

Get referrals

One of the best ways to hire consultants is by references. Get to find out from someone whom you know about the good consultancies that are available. You can also go through the websites of leading Environmental Consultants. Find out about their work. There are online review sites too from where you can get plenty of information on the various consultants and their areas of expertise. Another good way will be to fix up appointments with the consultants and find out from them about the projects that they have handled.

Go through proposals

You need to get a few proposals before you narrow down your choice. If you want to narrow down the choice then you will need to go through the proposals in detail. Get to know about the steps that the consultants will be taking to study the project site. They usually undertake several types of study before they prepare their final assessment report. For example, they may need to study about the impact of the project on the vegetation in the immediate surroundings. For this purpose, they may need to test the soil. In some cases, they may need to take certain samples in order to study whether there has been contamination in the particular project site. It is only after collecting all these different types of data that they finally arrive at their assessments. It is therefore important that you discuss all these aspects whenever you are hiring the services of a consultancy.

EIA- Impact of Human Activities and Policies on Environment

The Environmental Impact Assessment, - hereinafter EIA - is one of the preventive instruments of environmental management that allows environmental policies to be met and that are incorporated, early in the process of development and decision making. Therefore, it evaluates and corrects human actions and avoids, mitigates, or compensates for any negative environmental impacts.

The EIA adopts a long-term approach and guarantees a complete and integrated vision of the meaning of human actions on the environment.

The general objective of the EIA is to frame human activities in the environmental policy that supports sustainable development.

In many cases, through the EIA, new technology is introduced into the environment, which could solve problems of deterioration. However, the evaluation and consultation process must examine the implications not only of the project but also of the environmental risks derived from the technology itself.

The EIA Project analyzes the particularities of the action in all its phases (design, construction, operation, and abandonment) and proposes corrective measures to eliminate, minimize or compensate for alterations, which imply damage to the environment, in a preventive manner.

It is a significant alteration of the environment of positive or negative character; When they are direct they involve partial or total loss of a resource or deterioration of an environmental variable (polluting waters, clearing forests, etc.); When they are indirect, they induce and generate other risks on the environment (for example, floods).

The impacts can be manifested: in a small area but with intense alteration; in large areas even if they are of low individual magnitude; positively and negatively, directly and indirectly, cumulatively and inducing other changes/risks.

The preventive approach consists of identifying and evaluating environmental impacts before they occur; for this, there are important steps to consider in the evaluation, such as:

1. Define exactly what should be excluded because it is not environmentally significant. Also called "screening" or "screening".
2. Define the scope that determines the key points that are necessary to examine in the evaluation. Also called "scoping".
3. Use the particular methods in each case, such as the analysis of scenarios, environmental standards of a preventive nature, and the use of integrating methodologies.
4. Define the information and participation needs of citizens.

An environmental impact assessment process is not in itself an instrument of decision but generates an orderly, coherent and reproducible set of antecedents that allow the promoter of a project, the competent authority, and the citizenry, in each case, to make informed and accurate decisions. All this is possible when an Environmental Impact Study is presented, and the respective authority submits it to a participatory review process to qualify the quality of the analysis.

It is important to highlight the preventive nature of the process since it guides decision-making in the stages prior to the execution of the action in question. In this sense, the environmental impact assessment process is always developed prior to the planned action.

The environmental impact assessment allows comparing existing environmental situations with those that would arise as a result of the development of a particular action. The comparison serves to identify both the positive impacts and the environmental benefits that arise from carrying out the project that is being evaluated, as well as those of a negative nature that must be managed to avoid environmental degradation. The most significant thing is that the measures that ensure the protection of the environment and make the action viable are incorporated; if this is not possible, the action must not be executed.

What is the price of an Environmental Impact Study?

The establishment of the cost and subsequent final price of the Environmental Impact Study is usually done internally depending on the days and resources involved in the preparation of the planning, fieldwork, number of professional specialties involved and subsequent cabinet work.

Thus, even if the project or plan has a great magnitude or is expected from it, we understand that the price of the Environmental Impact Study must be independent of it and must be subject only to objective factors intrinsic to the nature of the project or plan and of the environment that will support it instead of a percentage of the investment or the amortization plan or expected benefits. The factors that, in our opinion, define the final cost of an Environmental Impact Study are the following:

1. The first element that decides the price of a project or plan submitted to Environmental Impact Assessment is obviously the type of project or plan. Thus, the type of project will determine the factors of the environment to be studied with greater rigor, since economic-technical efforts must be focused on evaluating the factors of the environment that can really be affected.

2. Regardless of the distance of the project to the headquarters of the environmental consulting team that prepares the Environmental Impact Study, the project situation, understood as the set of values of the environment present in the area, also defines the cost of the Environmental Study, being equal or more determinant than the typology of the project.

3. By period of study, we are not referring to the time of year, but to the period of time that will be necessary to properly evaluate the factor to be studied, such as the need to conduct Annual Animal Studies in projects that involve a greater impact on the same, as wind farms that in the majority of the occasions require the elaboration of a study in different seasons of the year.

4. The extension of the project also defines the price of an Environmental Impact Study, since the field analysis of a greater extension of territory translates into a greater number of field hours; For example, it is not the same to carry out the environmental impact study of a small farm of a few square meters than a solar plant of several hundred hectares.

5. Regarding the quality of the Environmental Impact Study that we offer, although it would be a determining factor to hire an environmental consultant or another, we can say that, unfortunately (or luckily for some), the cost of the Impact Study Environmental is sometimes not proportional to the quality. Since experience tells us that we can find environmental consultants in the market that offer Environmental Impact Studies at a good price and high quality and, on the contrary, we find "professionals" that due to lack of knowledge or due to malpractice, they offer low-quality Environmental Impact.

6. The experience of the Environmental Consultant that prepares the Environmental Impact Study and the number of own professional specialties involved, are also determining factors in the price, since this experience and internationalization of the specialization translate into speed of execution and optimization of resources and, to its time, in a cost reduction.

7. Last, and not least, is the degree of definition of the project or plan that is intended to be evaluated; Thus, the cost of an Environmental Impact Study of a project in the definition or draft phase can increase considerably, since the research and development work that the environmental consultant must carry out in order to correctly evaluate the project will involve a greater effort and, therefore, a higher cost. The inherent risk of the dreaded project modifications is included here.

Biological Assessment and Its Factors

What is the purpose of a geotechnical investigation? Determine the depth, depth and thickness of the subsurface layers to the required depth, determine the depth of the water level, obtain information about the depth of a rock surface, obtain characteristics of the rock as to classification, state of change and variations and obtain data from mechanical parameter of compressibility, shear strength and permeability for the layers of interest. Is it worth doing? This investigation is fundamental to start a foundation and later to make a work feasible.

The Biological Assessment is divided into the recognition phase, the exploration phase, the detailing phase, and the monitoring phase. In the reconnaissance phase the objective is to obtain information about the nature of the local geological formations and main features of the subsoil, as well as to make an analysis of the area that is most feasible to do a work, to estimate what kind of foundation would be necessary and what this cost, quality, safety and environmental change in the work, also having to choose the most appropriate methods to do the research.

Factors for geotechnical research

To do the geotechnical investigation, it is necessary to choose the method that will be used, where we have a direct and indirect method. The direct method allows direct observation of the subsoil.

In this way, samples are collected along drilling or excavation or measurement of soil properties with direct contact of the probe with the soil. In the indirect method, it is possible to estimate the geotechnical properties of soils by the measurement of soil magnitude by remote sensing or geophysical tests.

Schedule.

The initial recognition of the soil is done visually, the topography of the site must first be observed, and if there is any slope in the area, its stability should be checked later.

Then check if there is a possibility of having a landfill, a swamp or a mine of water near the land. It is also verified if that soil is contaminated, this may be necessary depending on the use that that soil previously had of its possible execution of the project.

After that, a check should be made in the neighborhood and surroundings, such as the types of foundations that were used, and the state of preservation of neighborhood constructions.

Methods.

In the field trials with respect to direct methods, we have several types of tests, the main ones being: simple recognition probing with SPT, CPT in situ Cone Penetration Test, standard test method for performing the flat plate dilatometer (foreign method) , standard test method for pre-bored pressure meter testing in soils (foreign method) and the rehearsal test in situ.

Indirect methods are also field trials and will be verified through these methods that we call geophysicists. It is obtained the data in the indirect or geophysical method through reflection or geophones or refraction or electrical resistivity.

Guidelines.

To proceed with the Biological Assessment, it is necessary to follow some guidelines, such as: identifying the purpose of the work and its proportions, the characteristics of the terrain, experiences and social practices and the cost and feasibility of the work.

These investigations are of paramount importance so that those who intend to build do not end up investing money in the wrong place at the wrong time. For when we talk about experiences and social practices, we must also analyze whether there have already been problems with buildings in that terrain, about accidents, such as landslides, among others.

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