Environmental Impact Assessment – Effective Cost Management

admin — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:50:59 +0000

The cost of carrying out an environmental impact assessment can be a significant part of the planning and design cost of a development project. Notoriously, the EIA costs are difficult to predict at the outset of the project. This uncertainty is mainly due to an initial lack of knowledge of the environmental baseline conditions on the development site. As the project progresses, site knowledge increases gradually and new costs may emerge while some risks may reduce. Particularly in the current economic climate, there is a need to have a clear understanding of the costs and the risks of the environmental impact assessment at an early stage in the project.

The first step to effective cost management of an environmental impact assessment is to carry out a thorough EIA scoping study. The outcome of the EIA scoping study should be a clear understanding of the basic site characteristics and the likely environmental risks and sensitivities. It should also provide a clear programme on how to address the issues that have been identified in the further environmental impact assessment.

Following a carefully undertaken EIA scoping study, uncertainties remain. These uncertainties are however much more manageable. For instance, during the EIA scoping study it was identified that no important archaeological features have been recorded in the wider area around a site. The following step that is proposed is to carry out a geophysical site survey. Depending on the outcome of the survey there may be a requirement to carry out an intrusive investigation in the form of an excavation.

There are three uncertainties that will determine the final cost for archaeological work as part of the environmental impact assessment. Firstly there is the uncertainty about the exact cost to carry out the geophysical survey. The error margin on this should be relatively small as it is a fairly defined activity. The second uncertainty relates to whether or not the results of the survey indicate the need of further work. This is a yes or no issue, where the uncertainty relates to the chance that further work is required. Finally, the third piece of uncertainty relates to the cost of the intrusive investigation should this be required.

A system that is based on the Monte Carlo cost forecasting system is ideally suited to deal with these kind of uncertainties. The outcome of the Monte Carlo cost forecasting system is typically a series of potential project costs together with the probability that each of these costs will not be exceeded. Thus, employing a combination of a rigorous EIA scoping study and the use of the Monte Carlo cost forecasting methodology are essential tools in the effective cost management of environmental impact assessments.

Iso 14001 Environmental Management Systems

admin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:41:34 +0000

The individuals dealing with management system development and improvement are often asked about the relative merits of independent as opposed to combined systems for these two standards – and other possibilities as well.

Avoiding the trap of siding with a particular faction within the organisation posing the question, the logical solution is to integrate the systems from the outset. Much of the required material for the environmental standard already exists as part of the quality management system, and the advantage of having one overall management task is surely a real benefit.

The inspection status of the two standards at the present time (2008) introduces a credible reason for splitting the systems, specifically with regard to the distinct difference in the focus on statutory and legal obligations made necessary by the documents. The soon to be appearing revision of ISO9001, supposedly more similar to the recent ISO14001, should take away this seemingly anomalous condition, although it should still be kept in mind that a company is regulated by legal requirements with respect to the environment, regardless of whether or not it utilises the environmental standard.

The expense of creating a new Environmental management system for registration requirements wouldn’t be much different to the expense of a corresponding Quality management system, where as the expense of combining an environmental piece to a current quality system would most likely be much less. This is simply because of a similar basic document framework with compatible requirements. A certain amount of training would be required, both for management and the employees, although any internal auditors may need a great deal of training and mentoring.

There is an additional financial benefit to putting the two systems together – particularly if both don’t initially exist at the beginning of the task – the good fortune to not include any of the bureaucracy that so often results from retaining a management system with a formal registration, particularly the anomalous Quality Manager appointment. This post is a throwback to the application of Quality Assurance within manufacturing, when Chief Inspectors became managers of quality, and business continued in the way it always had. With the introduction of a combined quality and environmental management system the way is clear to dispense with the management post, redistribute responsibilities to those able to deliver results against those responsibilities, and recognize control and development of the management system to be one of Systems Integrity, with little to do with product or service delivery performance.

Outsourcing part or all of this newly defined assignment would result in improved performance at significantly reduced cost.

By: Ed Bones

Environmental Management » Outset

Environmental Impact Assessment – Effective Cost Management

Iso 14001 Environmental Management Systems