This past year saw record fines levied against environmental polluters, totalling 11.8 billion dollars for the EPA’s fiscal year ending September 30th. We don’t like to use the stick to encourage compliance; but, understanding, following and respecting environmental law can clearly save you a lot of headaches and money down the road. It is likely, in my humble opinion, that fines and prosecution will continue their steady rise.

The highlights for the American cases include:

• In one of the largest settlements in EPA history, American Electric Power, a coal-fired electric utility company, agreed to install pollution controls and take other measures that will reduce a record 1.6 billion pounds of air pollution. The company also agreed to pay a $15 million penalty, the largest ever paid by an electric utility for New Source Review violations of the Clean Air Act.
• Jenn Feng Industrial Company, a Taiwanese manufacturer, and three American corporations agreed to pay $2 million, the largest civil penalty ever for violations of Clean Air Act non-road engine regulations, for importing 200,000 chainsaws that failed to meet federal air pollution requirements.
• Four of the top 10 U.S. home builders, Centex Homes, KB Home, Pulte Homes, and Richmond American Homes, agreed to pay civil penalties totaling $4.3 million to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act for delays or failures to obtain proper storm water permits for numerous construction sites.
• Massey Energy Company, Inc., Central Appalachia’s largest coal producer, agreed to pay a $20 million penalty, the largest of its kind, for discharging pollution into local waterways.
• British Petroleum Exploration (Alaska), Inc., pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay a $12 million criminal fine and $4 million in restitution to the state of Alaska for two pipeline leaks, one of which was the largest spill ever on the state’s North Slope.

Full Article Here.

I recently presented at a monthly meeting of technology start-ups in Montréal. Below is the video of the 8 minute talk which covered web 2.0 for industry and a brief demo of our site. The quality is average and I manage to stand outside the camera frame for 3/4 of the video. Lastly, below the video is the text of one longer slide that is not clearly visible within the video.

Committees, Ugh!

“In most companies, software below $1000 can be bought without any additional approvals.  Above that, software purchases have to be approved by a committee. Baby-sitting this process is so expensive for software vendors that it doesn’t make sense to charge less than $50,000. 

If you make something originally priced at $5 000, you have to sell it for $50,000 to turn a profit.

The purpose of the committee is presumably to ensure that the company doesn’t waste money.  And yet the result is that the company pays 10 times as much for an inferior product.”

- (Heavily) Inspired From Paul Graham – Artists Ship

The global economic slowdown is already being reflected in job cuts, budget restrictions and spending allowances. We all know, the best way to save money is to use more efficient tools. A chef needs sharp knives, a carpenter needs clean saws, and an environmental manager needs clear explanations. Let’s run through a typical situation with NIMONIK. 

Let us assume a typical environmental manager with benefits costs a company 35$ per hour.

An environmental manager in a single province typically reads the provincial and federal gazettes (3 hours) and then does further research on the changes every month (8 hours).

With NIMONIK, the gazettes are already evaluated and research can probably be cut down by 60% (I think that is conservative) as the concerns such as Air Emissions are clearly adressed in plain language. Let us say the environmental manager now spends 3 hours per month on NIMONIK. 

This leads to a monthly savings of 9 hours X 35$ = 315$ – NIMONIK subscription (69$) = 246$ per month which leads to:

2 952$ in Annual Savings

This does not include reduced liability to errors or oversights. NIMONIK notifies you of deadlines such as NPRI, GHG, Ontario Stewardship,… so you don’t forget anything. Let us maintain your register, keep you informed of changes and bring you up to speed before audits to help you stay compliant and free up employee time to work on your core business. 

It seems fair to say that NIMONIK will not cost you money, it will Save you Money!

We will be launching a private beta of NIMONIK 2 in the next couple weeks. We are looking for people to try out our system and give us some feedback. If you are interested, drop us an email trial @ nimonik dot ca

If you try the private beta, we will offer you a free basic plan 3 month subscription to the full system when it is launched.