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Many people have long mulled over the massive challenges in bridging the gap between sustainability and mining and declared them insurmountable. The solution, however, is technology.
Pacific Air & Environment was founded in 1995 as an environmental consultancy, working with mining and other businesses to develop strategies for reducing their impact on the environment and employing more sustainable business practices.
The company’s founders, Robin Ormerod and Kristin Zeise, soon realised that software and technology would be the driving force for this process. They began research into developing a technological solution and created monitoring software to capture and report environmental data on a live, user-friendly platform. This was the birth of what would grow into EnviroSuite. The firm was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in 2008 to raise capital for the project.
Pacific Environment had already started working on the early stages of EnviroSuite in 2004 as an environmental monitoring software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology, consisting of hardware modules and a software user interface.
The idea was that if organisations, particularly in the resources sector, could monitor their sites remotely and precisely, they would be able to respond to environmental risks before any hazards occur and significantly reduce their compliance overheads. It would also go a long way towards appeasing environmental critics.
At a meeting at the 2014 Air & Waste Management Association Conference in the US, Ormerod’s co-founder Zeise discovered a powerful opportunity to extend the product’s capabilities, particularly in terms of accuracy.
She was introduced to Sigma Space Corporation and after a brief discussion saw the potential to link up the two companies. Sigma Space develops what is known as Lidar, or light imaging, detection and ranging technology, which provides incredibly detailed scans of a site’s atmosphere.
Lidar technology

The data that can be collected with Lidar, in terms of monitoring and analysing the composition of a slice of atmosphere, is very impressive. The technology can be used to monitor surface pressure and greenhouse-gas emissions, locate and report fires by monitoring carbon monoxide and measure humidity. It is very useful data, particularly for mining sites.
Pacific Environment has now agreed to collaborate with Sigma Space for a long-term upgrade. Lidar is a complex technology and it?will take time to integrate it into the SaaS technology. A big challenge will be incorporating Lidar without undermining the simplicity and design of the existing user?interface.
The two organisations have now undertaken a collaborative, long-term research-and-development project to align their solutions to create the first comprehensive environmental monitoring platform that incorporates laser-ranging technology. As with most partnerships, however, the road to rolling out a successful product has not always been smooth.
The whole platform came out of what was a consulting-oriented business, so one of the biggest challenges was trying to restructure the firm into a technology-centric business and incorporate all its current skills into a platform. Co-founder Ormerod decided quite early on that consulting would be difficult to maintain and that technology was?taking on many of the responsibilities that would traditionally demand the skills of?a consultant.
Having worked as a programmer in the early 1980s, the decision to develop a software for the business was straightforward for him. It was converting the team’s skills into a software that presented a huge challenge.
Changing perceptions

Pacific Environment not only needed to adjust its business structure, but found that many prospective clients saw the company as a consulting firm. Given the strength of their technology, Ormerod and his team saw the need to reposition their brand, moving away from a traditional consulting business.
Even after the software took on a life of its own, the firm faced the issue that it was still perceived as a consultancy and not a technology company. To shift this perception, the team has been attending trade conferences in the mining and resources, air quality and water quality sectors to showcase EnviroSuite in the last few years.
The product is being trialled at a number of sites, including the Cerrejón mine, the largest mine in Colombia, and Thames Water in the UK. All the feedback has been positive and Cerrejón has fully embraced the product, which now monitors its entire site.
Moving the company from a consulting-based firm into a fully capable technology provider confirmed the belief that the gap between sustainability and the resources sector can be bridged through technology.
Pacific Environment is in the process of growing its reach and expanding from the UK and Australia into Europe and the US, reflecting the growing interest in technical solutions to monitoring and compliance.