Before you purchase or lease, you should identify if recent historical contamination has occurred. The only way to do this with confidence is a preliminary site investigation and detailed site investigation.
When you are purchasing a site with contamination or acquiring assets through M&A, you can leverage the contamination liability as part of price negotiations. iEnvi regularly assists our clients in reviews and negotiations on the cost of cleanup that might lower a single or portfolio of properties in value.
Navigating environmental site assessments (PSIs, DSIs, RAPs) for property development can be a daunting process with consultants and Auditors offering different scope and costs. Minimising your highest cost items, and ensuring delays are minimised so you get your fastest return on investment should be understood by your consultants, with the discussions with regulators in advance identifying any critical requirements as well as delaying permits, and Auditor specific nuances.
During construction you will want to minimise disruption by ensuring waste is classified in advance, samples are on a short turn around, and your consultant has exceptional communication and project management to identify and mitigate risks in advance that may cause disruptions.
Environmental management plans and compliance is a key area that iEnvi manage for our clients, ensuring also during acquisitions of operational compliance and shortfalls, so they can be factored into the price. To ensure EPA and Council compliance, and reducing the risk of catastrophic contamination, we assist our clients in getting back to compliance and reducing one of the many stresses in operating a business.
Before selling your site or exiting a lease, a detailed site investigation (DSI) can get a snapshot of the environmental conditions to allow:
- Exit lease terms being met for comparison of pre-lease conditions.
- Opening up the market to allow consideration and review of contamination in negotiations, so the issues can be agreed upon and don’t come back to haunt you as the legally liable polluter.
- Protecting yourself against future contamination being attributed to your own use/operation of the site.
After you have sold or purchased a property, you may be in a situation where contamination is detected after the transaction. Forensic analysis of contamination can help determine the liability or proportional liability of contamination to either party. iEnvi provides forensic analysis of contamination over time to help estimate sources and timeframes of contamination after it has occurred.
