Asset Sustainability

Asset management is maintaining a desired level of service for what you want your assets to provide at the lowest life cycle cost. Lowest life cycle cost refers to best practices and appropriate cost for rehabilitating, repairing or replacing an asset. Asset management is implemented through an asset management program and typically includes a written asset management plan.

The challenges facing water and wastewater infrastructure (including stormwater management systems) include:

  • Determining the best (or optimal) time to rehabilitate, repair or replace aging assets;
  • Uncertainties about climate change upon stormwater runoff frequencies, flows and contaminant loadings;
  • New regulatory requirements;
  • Responding to emergencies (as a result of asset failures); and,
  • Protecting assets

Although the watershed protection concept is now accepted, it is essential to translate this interest into rational and logical processes that capture the interest of decision makers and (most important) the public. If asset sustainability in conjunction with watershed management directives are to be effective, it must be implemented with regulatory policies and legislation. But asset sustainability is not all about science for there are many components that are not strictly science based. Organization and structure, funding, public involvement and decision making that transcend political boundaries are essential to develop effective strategies – whether at the watershed or subwatershed level.


GREENLAND® environmental projects use professional, multi-disciplinary teams. The cost of pre-emptive environmental planning is a small percentage of new development costs. Despite its low cost, it provides invaluable information that can save money during infrastructure design and construction stages. It can also prevent costly remediation and rehabilitation works.


Our team of experts firmly believes that to improve the quality of life, society must first protect what is already healthy. Each project is client driven and ultimately generated by the unique set of circumstances that influence the area that is being considered for development. While tools and methods may change from time to time, our commitment to the needs of our clients is a priority.


Strategic asset management for water and wastewater infrastructure must have regard for “watersheds”, as well as cumulative effects and climate change, since watersheds are exceedingly intricate and inter-dependent complexes of land, water, plants and animals.

The watershed is also now recognized as the priority unit for identifying and managing water supply and wastewater treatment systems. However, this approach to find sustainable asset solutions can place significant pressures on resource agency managers and planners to provide leadership and innovation. 


Since incorporation (over 25 years ago), our corporate brand has regard for asset sustainability principles since we combine traditional engineering methods and bio-mimicry principles with 'smart' technologies. We also pioneered a responsible corporate brand with an environmental protection, conservationist ethic and climate adaptation priorities too. 
 


Social Media

 
LinkedIn 
YouTube

Client Testimonials

Town of Penetanguishene

As Director of Public Works for the Town of Penetanguishene, I would like to extend my appreciation to Greeland Consulting Engineers for providing exemplary contract administration and construction inspection services for the Penetang Main Street Reconstruction Project. 

The Main Street reconstruction was a huge undertaking for the Town which consisted of: the full reconstruction of 1.4 km of roadway including widening for improved land widths, on-street parking, storm sewer replacement, watermain and sanitary sewer replacement, as well as landscaping and lighting improvements to better serve businesses and residents. The project included significant logistical challenges with respect to the coordination of public access for businesses, and providing workable upgrades to exisiting infrastructure under difficult site constraints and a tight time line. 

As the Contract Administrator and on-site Construction inspector, Greenland always maintained open lines of communication between the Town, Contractor, affected businesses and residents, and promptly, responded to all questions and issues raised by the Contractor, the Town and the public. Greeland's attention to detail throughout the assignment helped ensure the project was completed on-time and under budget. 

Bryan Murray, P. Eng
Director of Public Works
Town of Penetanguishene

February 12, 2019
 

County of Simcoe

The County of Simcoe is the upper tier government and planning authority for most of the South Georgian Bay – Lake Simcoe Source Water Protection Region. The County, in partnership with its member municipalities, other levels of government, floodplain management agencies and two (2) conservation authorities, also provides leadership through policy, and actively in the restoration and protection of the environmental health and quality of these watersheds. As you know, in order to comply with, and be environmentally proactive with respect to the Province of Ontario’s “Places to Grow” legislation, the County of Simcoe utilized innovative decision support tools such as Greenland’s CANWET™ model. In 2012, CANWET™ was also used by the County to prepare a “Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Visioning Strategy”. To this day, the information in the Strategy’s final report is used by local municipalities, development interests and other stakeholders as a background reference to help identify sustainable development solutions.
 
This letter confirms the County of Simcoe's commitment of support which includes initially facilitating the introduction of this landmark international collaboration with all 16 local municipalities, other governments (small and large) and other agencies that partner now with the County of Simcoe on land use planning; infrastructure renewal; and flooding risk/damage reduction initiatives.
 
As always, I look forward to our continued working relationship with you and your colleagues and the significant benefits these efforts will have for our residents and environment. The County of Simcoe appreciates your efforts towards developing information based decision making tools and we are confident that this project will prove beneficial in our collaborative goal to improve watershed health for all County residents.

Mark Aitken
Chief Administration Officer
The Corporation of the County of Simcoe

October 19, 2015
 

Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA)

Check out this (Greenland) video of THREATS (an open-source cumulative effects assessment tool to help direct environmental management (industrial or other)) and/or planning of future projects. It enables the compiling and juxtaposition of public environmental data (including, but not limited to, wildlife use areas and environmental quality data) with on-site or "targeted" environmental data. For security, the provision to include data protected behind a firewall exists to enable analysis and comparison of potentially sensitive data in the context of other datasets. The goal here is to allow for predictive capability and in turn mitigate potential effects. Equally, this provides a capacity to enable retroactive assessment (investigation of cause) of observed changes. The ability to spatially interpret stressor/pathway/receptor data, and conduct analyses within the tool, while retaining data in its original database (secure) is what is truly unique here. Excited to see what can be achieved with this powerful platform in areas where it has already begun to be used!

Neal Tanna
Advisor, Monitoring and Risk Assessment
Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA)

November 3, 2017
 

Corporate Partnerships & Associations

Partnerships and Accreditations