What is modern environmental engineering?

Observing nature in order to master it, is one of the Man’s oldest concern. Recent evolutions in environmental engineering make the idea even more relevant nowadays since technological and scientific improvements made the knowledge of nature useful for many industries.

For a long time, environmental engineering has been referring to the use of engineering principles to protect and preserve the environment. However, recent progress made it much more complex than traditional waste management and water treatment. Finding a new inspiration in its early origins, environmental engineering’s usefulness expands.

An ancient idea

“The roots of the willows do not suffer the banks of the canals to be destroyed; and the branches of the willows, nourished across the thickness of the bank and then cut low, thicken every year and become a single branch, and you have a bank that has life and is of one substance” pointed out Leonardo Da Vinci[1], back in the 16th century. In spite of such early and inspired observations, environmental engineering has preferred to adapt civil engineering solutions to reach its aim.

For a long time, heavy building was preferred over natural solution for stabilizing stream banks for instance. However, “hard” stabilisation techniques are progressively losing their monopoly on such an activity. Just like Da Vinci, other clever observers also found inspiration in nature and developed environmental engineering technics based on natural processes and their knowledge of riparian vegetal. A firm such as Greenbelt Consulting advocates a “Bio-Structural” approach to erosion and slope stability problems”. “Incorporating planned vegetational elements in engineering designs, can be less, more effective, and more adaptable than purely structural solutions” explains Elliott Menashe from Greenbelt’s, “vegetation should also be used in conjunction with geo-textiles and engineered structures whenever appropriate and practical”.

Greenbelt Consulting and shorelines management firms are not the only businesses to put to use modern environmental engineering. In the field of architecture, it was also considered with an early enthusiasm. In the late 1980’s, stainless steel cable started to be used to create vegetal facades. Covered in various plants, such facades has since then been known as green walls.  In 1994, Greenscreen installed the first large-size modern green wall in an entertainment centre in Universal, California. Demonstrating the reliability of its original trellis panel system, the firm revived the Babylonian vertical, hanging garden. Greenscreen updated the concept as well since its green wall was an indoor construction and has proven to be both aesthetic and profitable for the quality of the air inside the building.

Insight of a modern, ecological environmental engineering can be found as early as the 16th century. For the last 40 years, environmental engineering has been developing along with the call for the use of greener technics. Greenscreen and others firms made the very first successes of the profession. Since then, environmental engineering has been spreading to industrial activities.

New applications

After the Earth Summit was held in 1992 in Rio, the need for a greener industry was declared a priority. Industrial companies, especially those who were used to deal with polluting activities soon understood what they could gain from adopting new standards. Being both a source of major pollution as well as highly water consuming, petroleum industry has therefore evolved a lot in the last twenty. That trend culminated in 2011 when Shell started to exploit Pearl GTL in Ras Laffan, Qatar. This plant is the largest of its kind in the world. Not only is it designed to turn natural gas into cleaner fuels, it is also equipped with the most up-to-date water treatment technology.

Veolia Water was appointed by Shell to create the system that would make Pearl GTL the less water-consuming gas-to-liquid petroleum facility in the world.  Veolia water hence created a custom system that retreats a dozen of different effluents. It features some of most efficient filtration equipment, including devices based on the newest reverse osmosis technique. The system implemented in order to enable Pearl GTL to work as a closed circuit. The plant is therefore able to produce petroleum without using a single extra drop of water after it has been started. Pearl GTL is actually perfectly fitted to its Qatari environment, where extreme condition and short water supply require the best engineering skills for water management.

Other highly specific industries also take advantages of environmental engineering. Some technics were discovered or rediscovered by companies just like the use of some microbes and bacteria for soil decontamination purpose. Such a process is called bioremediation and is now regarded as one of the less expensive and most efficient soil decontamination technics. Microbes naturally take part in the process of organic compounds biodegradation.  Hydrocarbons as well as some types of pesticides and solvents can therefore be digested by microflora. Phosphates can be digested by comamonas and hyphomicrobium for instance, whereas cyanide is easily assimilated by thiobacillus.

The ENSR Group made a business of that knowledge of microorganisms. Before it was sold to AECOM Technology Corporation, ENSR used to generate a solid $240 million revenue. The firm is now part of a bigger business but it keeps offering environmental services that have become famous all around the world. With the help of ENSR’s expertise, AECOM therefore took part in soil remediation and site restoration works in Minnesota and Malaysia for instance. In Minnesota, AECOM treated entire networks of water streams with bioremediation. Besides, the Malaysian Government appointed the company a management framework of the countries contaminated land.

In recent years, environmental engineering has accomplished major improvements. Technological achievements in the field of pollution and water treatment testify of those significant steps towards a better use and care of humanity’s natural habitat. Besides, the extension of environmental engineering’s use to a broad variety of purposes, like architecture or the petroleum industry, illustrates that such a science has now reached a new stage of maturity. It can therefore be considered as a multipurpose tool for States, industries and even individuals. This is for the better since environmental engineering first goal is to allow the most efficient use of natural resources and keep them available in the long-run. In this regard it is part of a broader sustainable development effort.

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[1] VINCI (Da), L., “Notes on Military Architecture” in The Literary Works of Leonardo Da Vinci – Vol. 1, PEDRETTI C. (ed), University of California Press, 1977, p. 72.

What the horsemeat scandal tells us about food traceability

Early in 2013, the United Kingdom and then the whole European continent were startled at the discovery of a major food safety scandal. Some beef lasagne manufactured by a major industrial food company was proved to be made up to 100% horsemeat. Not only is this story revealing the risk that has threatened consumers for a while. As a matter of fact, it also suggests how little we know about the processed food we eat.

On the very first week of February 2013, Findus withdrew its beef lasagne from the European market. A few days before that the British Food Standard Agency made out that those products marketed as beef meat actually contained horsemeat. Findus might have been suspected of deceiving consumers at first. But it did not take long before the manufacturer actually apologised for putting those products on the market and started an investigation about them.

In the United Kingdom, the horsemeat scandal made a really clear point in consumers’ mind. People need to know what is inside their plate and incorrect advertisement is not to be tolerated. The story has highlighted how easily the trust between producers and consumers could be sapped. But this is not the only lesson of it. In a way, one might consider Findus a victim among a lot of others, caught in an extremely complex system which makes it almost impossible to control what a business sell before a consumer buys it!

Findus’ investigation established that the incriminated food products were prepared by a French supplier called Comigel based in Metz, in the North of France. Comigel had worked for Findus since 2011 and had prepared the products in Luxemburg. The meat Comigel used was bought from another French society, Spanghero, set in south of the country. As a customer of a French supplier, Comigel expected to buy French-gown meat from Spanghero. But Findus taught Comigel that Spanghero’s meat actually came from Romania.

In Romania, the whole industrial chain of Findus discovered that the slaughterhouses which provided meat to Spanghero processed beef meat as well as horse meat. That discovery allowed Findus to reassure consumers since the slaughterhouses were certified by the European Union and allowed to produced beef and horse meat that was destined to human consumption. However, the investigation showed that no less than five intermediaries, including supermarkets, had taken a part in selling those products to consumers. And none of them really knew what was inside the products until the scandal burst out!

Findus withdrew its contaminated products from the marking. And yet this story still has lessons to teach. The fact is that organisation of the global food industry today makes efficient traceability a very difficult goal to reach. Of course, producers like Findus are not completely blind and are able to control what their products are made of. But the horsemeat scandal illustrates that systemic factors tend to make information about the products uncertain.

Besides, a lot of companies around the world use the long complex industrial food chain to keep some secret. Let us think about Coca-Cola. Do people really know what is inside of their favourite soda? Of course they don’t since Coca-Cola makes a point of keeping its recipe unique. That the structure of food industry be inclined to opaqueness is not necessarily a danger. Nobody has ever died from drinking Coke, neither has anybody from eating Findus’ lasagne. Yet one question remains without an answer: which independent institution today controls that traceability standards are respected in the food industry and prevents major food-related sanitary scandals from happening?

In many regards was the horsemeat scandal an important phenomenon. It both illustrated the fundamental need for transparency on the food market and how difficult traceability was to establish in the food industry. Revealing the flaws of a system, this story might very well be the call for a new start in the food industry.

Why the GMO debate is taking a new turn in the UK

Remarkable shifts have occurred in the GMOs debate since the beginning of 2013. GM crops found new advocacy. In the meantime, the opposition remains strong and do not hesitate to undermine the technical interest of GMOs for agriculture along with insisting on health risks.

Would British people mind eating GMOs? The answer to such a question is most definitely yes. In January 2013, the UK Food Standard Agency made out that 67% of the public wish a food product to be labelled if it comes from an animal that was fed with GM plants. Whereas the public remains highly suspicious towards GMOs consumption, the government gave sign of sympathy to GM technology.

A shift has been occurring in the United Kingdom regarding the debate on GMOs. In January 2013, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affaires Owen Paterson promoted genetically modified food. During a speech at the Oxford Farming Conference he insisted on the many interests of GMO and claimed the government owed “a duty to the public to reassure them that it is a safe and beneficial innovation”.

Coming from Owen Paterson, such a statement is not a big surprise. The Secretary was already famous for calling British consumers opposition to GM food a “complete nonsense”. What is surprising however is that Mark Lynas, one of the earliest anti-GM food campaigners, expressed a favourable opinion along with Owen Paterson. “My conclusion is very clear”, said Mark Lynas at Oxford Farming Conference’s attendance, “the GM debate is over. It is finished. […] over a decade and a half with three trillion GM meals eaten there has never been a single substantiated case of harm”.

The government seems to have taken a pro GMO stand that even former opposition representatives will follow. But is the british market willing or even ready to accept GMOs in the shelves of its supermarkets? Judging by the reaction the Oxford Farming Conference triggered, nothing could be less certain.

Such a twist in the british GM debate was not likely to go unnoticed. British citizen remain mostly opposed to GM food consumption. Anti-GMO organisations know it and pointed out again very well as a reaction to the Secretary of State’s speech at Oxford. The Economist for instance reminded its reader of a poll published by the British Science Association in March 2012 which showed that “the share of people expressing some level of concern about GM foods had fallen, but only by five points from 2003 to 2012, to 47%”. It looks very much like GMOs harmlessness remains to be proven to British.

Why is there such a gap between people’s feeling and the government’s ideas? According to GeneWatch UK, private interests are clearly interfering with the regular course of politics regarding GMOs in the UK. “It is clear that ministers have done a dodgy deal with the GM industry to promote GM crops in Britain” said GeneWatch UK’s Director, Helen Wallace. As early as the 4^th of January 2013, GeneWatch UK points out that “All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture is being used by Monsanto and other GM companies to lobby on behalf of their business interests”.

GM industry might very well try to convince of the usefulness of their products. Beyond lobbying consideration, the recent twist in the debate about GMOs however seems to have raised a new fundamental question. On one side, some leaders argue that GM crops will help farmers staying competitive. Such crops might indeed help them grow food in spite of very harsh conditions like the ones british agriculture faced in 2012. On the other side, organisations like the Soil Association that opposes GM crops claim that only diversifying cultures and methods will enable farmers’ businesses to go unarmed through extreme environmental shifts. In that scope of analysis, highly specific GMO’s are everything but a good solution for national agriculture.

It is therefore hard to say where the current debate will takes us and why. However, nobody can deny today that something has changed in the way the debate was held both in its form and its substance. Mark Lynas might very well think the GM debate is over, but in many regards the topic has not been so hot in many years.