For Immediate Release
January 9, 2019
ST. JOHN’S (NL) – The Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Industry Association (NEIA) is celebrating the achievements of three members who are the winners of the province’s Environmental Industry Awards.
“As an association focused on business and industry growth, much of our time is spent planning for the future,” said Kieran Hanley, NEIA’s Executive Director. “But it is equally important to celebrate the achievements of today; for that reason, this past year we were proud to renew our awards program and recognize those businesses and individuals who are helping develop clean technologies and grow the green economy in our province.”
NEIA’s Industry Awards program features winners in three categories:
The Cleantech Innovation Award recognizes achievement in research and development, commercialization, and/or refinement of products, services, or processes that can mitigate effects to, protect, or enhance the environment. 2018’s Cleantech Innovation Award has been presented to Intelligent Materials and Monitoring. “Intelligent Materials and Monitoring has developed a water-sampling instrument that has the potential to significantly reduce the time and environmental impact associated with traditional techniques,” said Hanley.
The Environmental Industry Business Excellence Award recognizes a significant initiative, project, or achievement of a business engaged in Newfoundland and Labrador’s green economy. 2018’s Environmental Industry Business Excellent Award has been presented to Anaconda Mining. “Anaconda Mining took a different approach with the excess rock produced from its mining operations, displacing 3.5 million tonnes of what would normally be waste and transforming that in to new revenues and jobs for the region,” said Hanley.
The Environmental Industry Champion Award recognizes the contribution of an individual to the growth of Newfoundland and Labrador’s environmental industry. 2018’s Environmental Industry Champion Award has been presented to Leslie Grattan. “Leslie’s contributions throughout her career – whether that be in her capacity as a regulator, decision-maker, practitioner, business owner, or volunteer – have been significant and will leave a lasting impact on this province’s green economy; NEIA is proud to recognize her as an industry champion,” said Hanley.
More information on the award winners can be found in the attached backgrounder. NEIA is a not-for-profit association of businesses that promotes the development of clean technology and the growth of the green economy in Newfoundland and Labrador. NEIA has over 200 members. More information can be found at https://neia.org.
Media Contact:
Kieran Hanley
kieran@neia.org
Intelligent Materials and Monitoring
Intelligent Materials and Monitoring is a clean technology company spin-off from Memorial University that commercializes a synthetic polymer material, AqMIP that can selectively absorb certain chemicals like environmental contaminants, with first application being a portable water sampling analysis consumable. The technology and product were developed at Memorial University through the efforts of an interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by Chemistry (Professor Christina Bottaro) in collaboration with Process Engineering (Professor Kelly Hawboldt) and Translational Research (Assistant Professor Carlos Bazan). The AqMIP allows for on-site sampling and significantly reduces the average time spent for water sample handling and analysis. The technology offers many advantages over the current standard methods of sampling: it reduces contaminant sampling volume by 50x, from 1L to 20 mL, minimizes waste by as much as 98%, can be used directly on raw samples, allowing for accurate on site sampling, can easily be integrated into the existing laboratory infrastructure with no additional costs; it can potentially be deployed using remotely operated vehicles; and perhaps most important significantly reduces overall costs of analysis. There is enormous potential for the technology to eliminate the environmental impact of continuous transportation of large water samples from offshore to onshore, from remote locations to laboratory facilities, to increase the throughput of samples for a more accurate analysis, and to provide data quickly when environmental threats emerge or for daily environmental compliance monitoring. There are many potential applications for the technology in daily environmental monitoring and analysis in offshore oil and gas, fisheries and aquaculture, marine transportation, drinking water, wastewater, etc. The company is currently carrying out product testing with potential Canadian clients. Accepting the award on behalf of Intelligent Materials and Monitoring is Co-Founder Dr. Stefana Egli.
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Anaconda Mining
One person’s trash is another’s treasure; Anaconda Mining has fully embraced this philosophy. In its gold mining operations in Baie Verte, Anaconda creates significant sums of waste rock – enough to fill 100,000 tractor trailers. But rather than treat the rock as waste, Anaconda Mining took a second look at the aggregate and considered whether it actually held some value. Anaconda began to view this waste stream as an opportunity and explored options for shipping the waste rock via Baie Verte harbour. It found a partner on the Eastern seaboard interested in using the waste rock – over 3.5 million tonnes of it – for use in construction projects in the United States. The subsequent shipment of aggregates for this venture reduced the need for waste rock disposal on site and has decreased the overall environmental footprint of the project. But as with all great green economy projects, the benefits were not just environmental – there was a significant business upside as well. Through this initiative Anaconda has generated almost $1 million in new revenues in the last year alone, and has helped to create over 70 direct jobs for onshore operations as well as tug operators, harbour pilots, and hand-lining services. This project puts on full display Anaconda Mining’s commitment to economic development through environmental sustainability. Accepting the award on behalf of Anaconda Mining is Allan Cramm, Vice-President for Innovation and Development.
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Leslie Grattan
Leslie Grattan is an environmental management practitioner and entrepreneur who has made a significant contribution to the growth of Newfoundland and Labrador’s environmental industry. Ms. Grattan started her career in Ottawa where she was the first environmental professional in the federal agency regulating the offshore oil and gas industry. In this role she facilitated collaboration between government and industry to understand the environmental effects of offshore oil and gas in eastern Canada, and played a key role in developing the environmental requirements for the sector. The environmental assessment of the Hibernia brought Ms. Grattan back to Newfoundland in 1980, where she stayed in the offshore oil sector for nearly 20 years. In the late 90s, Ms. Grattan served as Newfoundland and Labrador’s Deputy Minister for the then Department of Environment and Labour where she made significant contributions to the creation of the provincial waste management strategy, collaboration with the federal government on integrated coastal management and multi-party environmental assessment agreements. Ms. Grattan now has her own consulting firm, which she started in 2004, and continues to apply her expertise to marine projects locally and internationally. Recently Ms. Grattan has played an important role in facilitating business relationships and knowledge transfer between Newfoundland and Labrador and Guyana’s offshore oil and gas industry. Ms. Grattan has served on a number of boards, lending her expertise to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and the Oceans Learning Partnership. Leslie Grattan’s contributions as a regulator, decision-maker, practitioner, business owner, volunteer, and ambassador have made her a champion of Newfoundland and Labrador’s environmental industry.
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