Air Consultant, Quality Work and Environmental Responsibility

What is an air quality consulting company?

Such a consulting company is one that helps manufacturing and production firms when they have air emissions problems. Proth regulatory requirements and compliance with those requirements.

What kinds of occupations work in such a company? Atmospheric scientists, meteorologists, engineers and oodles of administration folks.

And what do these people do? They help manufacturers report air emissions, determine risks associated with potential mishaps, prepare environmental site assessment reports and take on other air quality tasks.

Can I see an example of one of these companies? You will find a profile on this webpage: http://www.stuffintheair.com/airqualitytesters.html

What does an environmental consulting company do? One that concentrates on air issues may specialize in emissions inventory preparation, air quality assessments or environmental regulatory compliance. And a group that really knows what they are doing may offer services in all three plus areas air quality dispersion modelling.

Here is a formula that works. The corporate structure may go something like this.

President. Experience counts. When a person has been around the block a few times he or she may get to know a few people and a few things. If the leader has been conducting emissions testing and inventories for decades, or choosing strategic locations for air monitoring equipment, modelling and reporting, that rounds out the experience profile, and should implant deep knowledge of how to do these things efficiently.

When such a person has also completed several audits, complementing a strong scientific background, extensive international consulting experience, plus experience training other professionals in the subject, you can definitely call that a diverse past. A strong past may lead to a more certain future.

Chief Engineer. 30 years of or more of experience can teach you something. Innovative atmospheric modelling and design projects need a highly qualified consultant in this area of expertise. What kind of projects? Unusual things like non-steady state emission sources. Quality Assurance and Quality Control is of utmost importance, especially if the client industry needs emissions reduction strategies that work without hindering economic performance.

A Dispersion Meteorologist or two. Again, a diversified background helps strongly. If that experience includes the preparation of emissions inventories, dispersion modeling with a variety of software, design of air monitoring networks and statistical interpretations, for instance, so much the better. This will help industrial firms get what they need to know. Things like where to site atmospheric monitors and mitigate air quality problems.

Diversified Management and Administrative Staff. Every company has these, but if they either have scientific degrees coupled with exactly the right experience or have been working closely with other key personnel for a long time, that makes more special.

What kind of work do these companies do? The list includes air dispersion modeling, regulatory compliance activities, environmental impact and emissions management and health and safety services to name a few. One other example, discussed here, is environmental audits.

Various audits are needed to keep potentially polluting industries in check. What kind of audits? Environmental, regulatory and risk assessment audits for example.

If a plant has any smoke stacks with automated flue gas monitoring, the government will probably require annual audits on the device. Some jurisdictions have codes which manufacturing firms need to follow.

This helps to ensure industry personnel responsible for operating, maintaining, compiling data and archiving reports for this equipment do it right. What happens if a problem is found? The employer may need to call an environmental consulting company to help design a way to fix it.

What if the government requires air quality monitoring? Most do. The industry has to follow the regulations and report their results. They also have to maintain the plant air quality testers and devise a plan to keep a minimum level of data quality. The governing agency will also require audits to the system at regular intervals to keep an eye on potential problems.

We know industry carries with it a certain amount of risk. Accidents occur. Things such as spills, fires and such. Risk management allows us to find out what things are likely to occur, minimize those probabilities and determine what risks we can live with. This assessment usually begins with a risk audit of some type.

One more thing. Environmental, health & safety management systems need to receive regular audits. Such a management system ensures that the company can do what it needs to do to keep a high standard of environmental stewardship, health and safety.

Teaser - When manufacturing companies find themselves in some sort trouble with the environmental regulatory body, they need to turn somewhere for help. Where do they go? Well, it depends on the type of work that needs to be done, but a good catch-all environmental services firm may be of great help.