Environment
Fonntes develops projects with a focus on the environment, aiming to offer its clients solutions such as recovery plans for degraded areas, effluent monitoring plans to reduce and control emissions/releases into the environment, environmental licensing, erosion control plans, and environmental diagnostics, among others.
Find out more about its solutions:
Recovery plan for degraded areas
Fonntes develops projects to draw up Recovery Plans for Degraded Areas – RPDA. The aim of recovering a given degraded area is to restore its physical, chemical, and biological integrity and, at the same time, to recover its productive capacity, whether in the production of raw materials and food or in the provision of environmental services. The company works on measuring the impacts related to different activities, planning them bearing in mind to minimise future recovery costs, and drawing up and implementing the RPDA itself. Because of disturbances caused by a wide range of industrial projects, Fonntes Geotécnica offers to work with your company to assess the local situation and adapt recovery, rehabilitation, and/or redevelopment strategies to the characteristics and peculiarities of each case.
Preparation of an effluent monitoring and solid waste management plan
Given the complexity of industrial plans and the extent of applicable legislation, Fonntes Geotécnica, through its team of professionals, offers to develop effluent monitoring plans together with your company to reduce and control emissions/releases and solid waste management plans that seek to minimise the generation and ensure environmentally appropriate final disposal. At Fonntes, they carry out activities such as: • Characterisation of waste and effluents, the establishment of sampling points, parameters, and frequency of analyses, having in mind complying with current legislation. • Analysing reuse possibilities together with the client, within the production process itself. • Searching for environmentally and economically feasible alternatives for the final waste disposal. • Development of mitigation strategies for areas already impacted.
Environmental licensing
The demands of environmental legislation, as well as the increasingly active supervision of the competent authorities, mean companies need to adapt more during the development of their projects. According to Brazilian legislation, before installing a project, environmental licensing must be carried out. This consists of an administrative procedure through which the government authorises the installation, expansion, modification, and operation of activities or projects that use environmental resources and are considered effective or potentially polluting. To this end, Fonntes Geotécnica prepares documents and conducts processes that subside the licensing of new and old projects. The scope of services includes: • Preparation of the Environmental Impact Study (EIA): This consists of a comprehensive technical report that aims to demonstrate the environmental feasibility of the project. • Preparation of the Environmental Impact Report (RIMA): Based on the content of the EIA, the RIMA explains the conclusions of the technical document in an accessible way and always follows it up. • Preparation of the Environmental Control Report (RCA): This is required in the event of the EIA/RIMA being waved, or potential impacts arising from the installation and operation of the project for which the license is being requested. • Preparation of the Environmental Control Plan (PCA): The PCA is how the entrepreneur presents the plans and projects capable of preventing and/or controlling the environmental impacts resulting from the installation and operation of the enterprise.
Preparation of an erosive processes control plan
When industrial and extractive enterprises are set up, it is to be expected that the suppression of the original vegetation and the clearing of the area results in greater exposure of the local soil, with a consequent intensification of erosive processes, especially those originating from surface run-off resulting from rainfall events over the corresponding watershed. Based on this scenario, preventing action should be taken to control erosive processes, aiming to reduction of the magnitude of the impacts caused by them, avoiding damage to the soil, the hydrographic system, water sources, access roads, and the industrial plant, as well as maintaining the life quality of the populations neighbouring the project. Erosion control programmes must include the identification and characterisation of locations that are naturally susceptible to erosion and those that could suffer erosion because of the project’s installation. They must also present the appropriate measures for stabilising fragile areas and preventing new occurrences. In this context, Fonntes Geotécnica has a technical team trained to map susceptible areas by drawing up susceptibility maps, characterising these areas, as well as drawing up preventive and/or corrective action plans, monitoring plans, and offering technical support for the plans’ implementation.
Environmental diagnosis of degraded and/or contaminated areas
Due to direct or indirect demands imposed by environmental legislation, it is common for companies to have to carry out environmental diagnoses of contaminated and/or degraded areas, either in the pre-installation stage of a new development or in the decommissioning stage. With this in mind, Fonntes Geotécnica, through a multidisciplinary team, offers a range of services for your company, such as: • Identification and mapping of contaminated/degraded areas, or those with potential for contamination/degradation. • Preparation of reports and technical opinions. • Drawing up and implementing sampling plans (soil and water). • Generation of risk and susceptibility maps for critical areas. • Drawing up preventive or corrective action plans.
Preparation of a vegetation suppression plan
Under large areas generally used for industrial developments and the consequent need to remove vegetation from these sites, Fonntes Geotécnica offers your company assistance in meeting the applicable environmental requirements, always aiming to optimise resources, control impacts and reduce costs in the recovery stage of the affected areas. To meet this goal, the company has developed the following services: • Drawing up fauna and flora inventory of the areas directly and indirectly affected. • Mapping of areas of ecological interest. • Analysing associated legal aspects. • Definition and indication of the most appropriate suppression strategies for each case, from the cutting methodology to the final disposal of the waste generated.
