Carbon footprint and sustainability

Coping with climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability are important for every company or organization to be today competitive both globally and locally and contribute to the fight against climate change.

The carbon footprint is one way to measure the effects of one’s activities to the environment and especially to the climate change. We help our clients to calculate the carbon footprint of the company or organization, conduct greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories, and calculate GHG emissions according to internationally recognized standards and methodologies. Together with our customers, we map the goals and help prepare an action plan for achieving climate neutrality and respective environmental goals.

We also conduct audits of carbon footprint reports calculated by companies or organizations, within the framework of which we assess the methodology, programs and the correctness of the basic data for the calculations and make recommendations to make the reporting more transparent and how to improve it.

Environmental impact assessment

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a process, which ensures that development projects that are likely to have a significant impact on the environment, are adequately assessed before allowed to proceed. This process facilitates the participation of relevant authorities and the public in environmental decision making. When planning the development of various economic activities, such as energy, infrastructure, industry or agriculture, it is important to predict and assess potential significant negative impact on the environment and to select appropriate mitigation measures. Such assessment of a large number of planned economic activities is not only required by international and national laws, but it is also useful to the developer of the proposed economic activity as a tool for predicting and managing potential business risks. EIA-s could also include a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) for the establishment of a sanitary protection zone (SPZ). This may vary from country to country.

Health impact assessment

Health impact assessment (HIA) is a process, which ensures that projects likely to have a significant effect on the public health are adequately assessed before they are allowed to proceed with further development. HIA helps decision-makers to choice about alternatives and improvements to prevent significant negative impact on the public health.  During HIA process sanitary protection zone (SPZ) is established. The SPZ is a territory which separates enterprises, their structures with technological processes which are sources of negative influence to the environment, from living areas, landscape, recreation zones and resorts. This should ensure a reduction of all undesirable production factors (chemical, physical or biological) below permissible values at the border of established SPZ.

Strategic environmental impact assessment

Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment (SEIA) is a systematic process for evaluating the environmental implications of a proposed policy, plan or program. This provides means for looking at cumulative effects and appropriate addressing them at the earliest stage of decision making process alongside economic and social considerations. The SEIA provides information for adequate response to environmental and climate change related challenges and offers opportunities to enhance the state of the environment by contributing to climate-resilient and low-carbon development. Compared with the EIA, SEIA provides recommendations at a strategic level and allows for better control over cumulative effects at the earliest stage of development.

Integrated pollution prevention and control permit and Pollution permit

Integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC) permit and Pollution permit (PP) needs to be issued to the companies or their separate structures with technological processes, carrying out polluting activities. An integrated approach to pollution control aims to prevent the release of pollutants into air, water and soil, efficiently manage waste and keep it at a minimum level. Both IPPC and PP define the conditions of polluting activity – permits specify the requirements that must be complied with in the course of the activity.

Environmental audit and due diligence

Environmental audit is an environmental management tool for identifying environmental compliance and management system implementation gaps, along with related corrective actions and measuring the effects of certain activities on the environment as well as comparing them to the standards, criteria or limit values set by laws and regulations. Environmental due diligence (EDD) is the process of assessing the environmental conditions of a project, site, activity or property  in connection with sell, merger or acquisition in a way that interested party is aware of the potential environmental liabilities. Sometimes the scope may be enlarged to cover environmental, health and safety (EHS) aspects.

Assessment of plans and projects significantly affecting Natura 2000 sites

These assessments are required when a project or plan may give rise to significant effects upon a Natura 2000 site. Assessment identifies likely impacts of a project or plan, either alone or in combination with other projects or plans upon a Natura 2000 site and considers whether these impacts are likely to be significant.

Biodiversity research, monitoring program and report

Biodiversity research helps to minimize adverse effects on biological diversity by considering impacts of projects on wide ranges of species (for example birds, mammals, bats etc) ant their natural habitats at the earliest stage of the project or development.

Environmental monitoring refers to the systematic observations and sampling of the environmental components and their analysis in order to derive knowledge. It is often used to monitor the performance of a project to verify its impact on the environment predicted during Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) studies and to assess the effectiveness of selected mitigation measures.

Air pollution and odor dispersion calculations and modelling, assessment and prediction

AERMOD View software is a complete and powerful air dispersion modeling package. It is used extensively to assess pollution and odor concentration and deposition from a wide variety of sources. Air dispersion modeling allows us to create a simulation of how atmospheric processes disperse pollutants in the atmosphere using mathematical formulations. This provides quantitative air concentration and surface deposition data which then can be used to demonstrate compliance with ambient air quality standards or can help select appropriate mitigation measures to achieve this goal.

Environmental noise assessment and prediction

CadnaA is the leading software for the calculation, assessment, presentation and prediction of environmental noise. It can be used to predict the noise emission of industrial plants, parking lots, new roads, railway schemes or even of entire towns and urbanized areas. Assessment and prediction of environmental noise at any stage of the project assists the client in understanding and selecting appropriate noise mitigation measures in order to comply with national noise standards and regulations.

Wind turbine or farm noise and flickering assessment and prediction

windPRO is the industry-leading software made for planning and design of separate wind turbine or wind farms projects. The DECIBEL module allows us to calculate the noise impact of a wind turbine or farm project, interactively adjust the turbine layout and generate documentation for authorities and neighbors using the built-in country specific calculation models. The SHADOW module allows us to calculate the annual hours of shadow flicker impact, generated by one or more turbines at either specified recipients or for a given area. Calculation of noise and flickering at the beginning of the project assists the client in selecting appropriate location of wind turbines in order to comply with national and international standards and regulations.

Hydro-geological investigations and calculations

Hydro-geology is a branch of geology that studies the location and forms of water in the earth’s crust, its movement, resources, level change, composition, and formation. Main field of research is availability of water resources dependent on natural and artificial factors, main objective being to clarify the possibilities for rational use and protection of groundwater against pollution.

We perform hydro-geological investigations and calculations, estimation of groundwater resources, two- and three-dimensional hydro-geological modeling, environmental assessment of surface water and groundwater state according to legislation.

We are licensed for hydro-geological works, activity license no. KHY000057.

Contact

Katrin Keis                         katrin.keis@nomineconsult.com

Gintvile Žvirblyte              gintvile.zvirblyte@nomineconsult.com