Companies have become more inclined to outsource their environmental service requirements in recent years because of difficulties keeping up with ever changing legislation according to Martin Lehane, director Lehane Environmental & Industrial Services.
“Environmental compliance is a critical factor for all companies. Corporate image and brands need to be protected and blue chip industries in particular will not risk being attached to companies who cannot clearly demonstrate environmental compliance.”
Tom Keenan, senior environmental scientist NESA disagrees with this view, suggesting that most progressive companies employ qualified environmental staff of their own who deal with the significant amount of onsite day to day environmental management requirements.
“Occasional or specialist inputs, occasional compliance auditing, special projects and troubleshooting support services tend to be outsourced to experienced independent environmental consultants.”
The bigger challenge facing environmental services providers, suggests CMSE environmental director Fergal Mee, is that Irish consultants are dropping their prices to a level where they are just about covering their fixed costs and overheads, while some of the bigger transnational environmental services companies are quoting jobs in Ireland on a below cost basis to undermine indigenous firms and corner market share.
Source: Technology Ireland Issue 2 Volume 42 May /June 2011 Pages 53 – 55 4.30MB
