Environmental opportunities and constraints analysis for projects

Greenfield developments or expansion of existing footprints require risk assessments to be conducted as part of due diligence on identifying potential impacts to the environment. Risks to a project can take on many forms from legal requirements through to environmental values and social and community expectations. Redleaf Environmental implements a rigorous process for conducting thorough site based assessments using desktop analysis and on the ground investigation of environmental values. Don't go into a development approval blind, know your risks.

Detailed investigation into the opportunities and constraints of projects is a necessary requirement for decision making. Our processes include;

Review of environmental constraints mapping

A range of environmental impacts and values can be ascertained through existing datasets (national, state or local data) and previous detailed studies relevant to the project. These data and supporting information are reviewed for their risk to the project from a legal perspective and mitigation strategy requirements. These data may include review of range of data including:

• Online species databases;
• Vegetation mapping;
• Threatened Ecological Community mapping;
• Wetlands and rivers mapping;
• Flood hazard mapping;
• Environmental offsets assessment;
• Environmental Management Register (EMR);
• Contaminated Land Register (CLR);
• Cultural heritage databases;
• Koala mapping for SEQ;
• Soils mapping including acid sulphate soils;
• Fire ants mapping; and
• Bushfire overlays.

These data, and a number of other databases including Redleaf’s own data collected from many years of field surveys, are reviewed and assessed for each project.

Detailed field investigations

The next step following desktop review of data sources is to conduct detailed field investigations. Should there be significant environmental constraints identified for a site, field investigations will be required to assess and map the extent of the values. This process helps to get a clear picture of the risks associated with the project development and its likely approval. Site based field assessments can include:

• Biocondition assessments;
• Protected flora surveys;
• Soils mapping and testing;
• Threatened fauna habitat assessments;
• Cultural heritage clearances; and
• Full EIS process.

Please give us a call or email if you need an environmental opportunities and constraints analysis.