Our work ranges from advising governments on land use, transport, waste and environmental policies to assessing air quality as part of environmental impact assessments or risk appraisal studies for developers, financial institutions and government agencies.
As part of our work on regional air quality, we are helping the Botswana government develop an air quality monitoring network, funded by the World Bank. This includes procurement of ambient air quality monitoring stations, modelling of Botswana’s coal-fired power stations and training of personnel.
We also help clients in industry obtain permits or modifications to permits for emissions to atmosphere, collecting data, completing assessments and modelling, and liaising with regulators to achieve practical and cost-effective solutions. For the East London Sustainable Energy Facility, to be built by Novera Energy, we carried out air quality modelling and reporting to support the PPC permit application. The project comprised of a gasification plant fuelled on SRF and wood chip, and was required to satisfy the EU Waste Incineration Directive.
Much of our work is to help our clients complete environmental impact assessments, such as for the Nizhnevartovsk 800MW CCGT in Western Siberia. Our deliverables met the requirements of lenders’ Equator Principles, and included assessment of key air quality effects using advanced dispersion modelling. In the UK we provided Natural England with case studies of assessments of air quality impacts on designated sites for ecology, for a range of developments. The case studies formed part of a two day training course for Natural England staff and were circulated nationally to regional teams.
Our work is typically a key element of due diligence assessments prior to acquisitions or investments. We carried out detailed environmental due diligence for evaluation of investment risk for the expansion of the Paiton Power Generation Complex in Indonesia. Key issues included cumulative impact of emissions to ambient air quality.
Modern construction projects are subject to intense scrutiny by both regulators and the public. We assessed construction dust and construction traffic emissions for the Victoria Station Upgrade Project for London Underground, and made recommendations for mitigation of impacts.
As part of all this work we carry out surveys and long term on-site monitoring or air quality to provide the necessary baseline data. Typically the data are incorporated in the computer models that we operate to understand and predict future air quality. For example, we carried out advanced dispersion modelling to determine an appropriate stack height and the effects on sensitive human health and ecological receptors for the Great Island CCGT Plant in Ireland.
Our in house skills include:
- Advanced dispersion modelling
- Air quality action plans and strategy
- Ambient air quality monitoring
- DMRB assessments
- Dust assessment and monitoring (including construction activities, minerals extraction and waste processes)
- Emission calculations and inventories
- Expert witness
- Impact mitigation
- Industrial emissions assessment
- Legislation and policy review
- Odour assessment
- Road traffic emissions assessment
- Stack height determination
- WebTAG assessments
