At Nimonik, we are currently developing an NPRI reporting tool that will help Canadian companies easily calculate emissions from multiple facilities and, if thresholds are met, report their findings to the government.

This release is intended to gauge interest from potential clients who would be willing to subscribe to such a service and solicit any feedback about their expectations on how an NPRI reporting tool can work best.

Typically, NPRI figures are calculated in excel, compiled for multiple facilities and reported to the government via their OWNERS website. Our tool would be conceived to allow you to easily calculate NPRI emissions for multiple facilities, to determine whether you meet threshold levels and send the information to the government

Both reporting companies and consultants can reduce the hassle of filing NPRI reports. Affordable and easy to use, this tool would save your firm time and money while allowing you to see trends and improve your reporting every year.

If an NPRI calculation and reporting tool interests you, please click here to learn more and add yourself to our notification list. If you have an extra minute, fill out a Market Survey for NPRI reporting and receive 100$ voucher valid for any service from Nimonik.ca, Environmental Regulations Simplified, subscription. If your firm is ISO 14001 certified, we can help you manage legal and aspect-impact registers.

We are very pleased to announce that the ISO 14000 Store, which offers useful tools for building and maintaining an ISO 14001 EMS, is working with us to deliver EMS documentation and environmental regulation to our clients. They have graciously provided us with a number of EMS documents you might find useful, these documents are part of a larger package they offer on their website.

4 Procedures:

1. Environmental Aspects
2. Legal Requirements
3. Objectives & Targets
4. Environmental Programs

and 1 Work instruction

1. Water Conservation

More documents just added:

1. Powerpoint presentation on ISO 14001
2. Initial environmental review
3. Gap Analysis Tool

Full List of documents available here. See all our fantastic affiliates on http://www.nimonik.ca/affiliate

In this weekend’s La Presse, François Cardinal wonders why governments always play with words when making policy for what to do with our waste.

After several revisions to its policy on “residual materials” (read waste), the Quebec government has reinvented the language of waste management. Instead of “dump” we say “sanitary landfill”. We no longer “recycle”, we “valorize”. Yes, it’s as silly as calling bald people follicly challenged, but the sad reality is that many governments (Quebec is by no means the only one) aren’t just playing with names, they’re fudging numbers too.

In 1989, Quebec adopted an Integrated Solid Waste Policy, which targeted a 50 per cent reduction in the quantity of waste sent for disposal by the year 2000. Then in 1998 the province adopted its Residual Materials Management Policy, which sought to “recover 65 per cent of the 7.1 million tonnes of residual materials that can be reclaimed each year.”

I’ll leave it to Cardinal to explain the rest in the following loose translation:

“Instead of calculated the rate of recycling based on all waste produced, as we did during the previous policy, we suddenly decided to calculate the rate of recycling based on only waste that can be recycled.

Pouf! Just like that, we managed to eliminate 12 per cent of our waste by ignoring its very existence.”

Now with the latest Draft Québec Policy on Residual Materials, released last week, Cardinal says Québec is back to its old tricks. One of the new goals is to bring the amount of waste that remains to be eliminated by disposal down to 700 kg per person. But as Cardinal remarks, the operative word is “eliminated”. Indeed there is no obligation to reduce the amount of waste we, in fact, actually produce. It’s really only about what we send to the “sanitary landfill.”

The problem, in a nutshell, is this. Yes, Canadians are recycling more, lots more than they did ten years ago. But they’re also consuming a lot more, so it’s no surprise that we’re sending more waste to the dump. Cardinal leaves us with this thought:

“In the end, as times passes, the more our waste increases, and the more we choose to use a vocabulary that brings us comfort in the idea that once we’ve taken our garbage out to the curb, it magically disappears.”

Just came across an interesting article discussing the ecological disaster that is shipping. This largely has to do with the use of “bunker fuel” – a very low grade, high sulphur, diesel that is used by ships around the world. The article claims 16 large tankers produce more pollution than all the cars in the world. See the article here.

Progress is being made on reducing deforestation in the Amazonian rainforest. This is being done through satellite monitoring of ranches and the enforcement of laws and regulations. In fact, deforestation in 2008 was at its lowest level since monitoring began in 1988 – promising news. The reality is that the enforcement of laws drives behaviour and to have a real impact the government must be tough. Article in the New York Times here. Money quote from Robert Cleary, author of a report on deforestation,

“Many of the more forward-looking farmers are already looking to protect themselves against worries that their products could be tainted by deforestation,” Mr. Cleary said. “For soy farmers, it is cheaper now to be in compliance than to take the risk of being on the wrong side of the law.”