Geo-Environmental Services, Limited (GESL) offer a comprehensive range of services for a range of developments. These vary from desk studies, through to on-site intrusive investigations, which are used to provide ground models for contaminated land assessments, foundation and pavement, road and drainage designs – all worthy causes that the 2016 BUILD Environmental Awards recognised in GESL. In addition, they slope stability analysis and design, basement impact assessments, building damage assessments, contamination remediation strategies and validation reports, together with earthworks specifications and material management plans.

To date, GESL have undertaken over five thousand investigations for a wide range of projects including; investigations of former gas works, petrol stations, landfills, chemical works, government sites, airports and railways, as well as schools, hospitals and green field sites.
All of GESL’s project scopes are developed with a site-specific assessment of the environmental and geological constraints as a matter of standard best practice. Furthermore, as an organisation we place a great deal of emphasis on client satisfaction. Our approach, from the outset, is to listen to and understand our clients’ requirements, allowing our highly qualified engineers to utilise their experience and knowledge of the latest legislation, investigation techniques and technologies to meet their needs.

This approach is backed up by the accreditations we have earned. In an industry where the advice that you supply is so heavily relied upon, it is important that clients can have confidence that we work to a recognised level of quality, a recognised standard for health and safety, a recognised standard for environmental performance and that we conduct our advice in line with industry best practice.

Firstly, we have invested heavily in ensuring that as an organisation we have all of the accreditations that we need to trade. We are therefore ISO9001, ISO14001 and OHSAS18001 accredited. We are also accredited on Achilles RISQS and UVDB, CHAS, Construction Line, SMAS and CQMS.

Secondly, in order to ensure that our staff are up to date with the latest industry developments we have a developed a structured training programme. The focus of this training programme is provided by our clients who guide us concerning their needs and our membership of industry bodies such as the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE), Association for Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Specialists (AGS), Environmental Industries Commission (EIC), Institute of Environmental

Management and Assessment (IEMA), Institute of Directors (IoD), Society of Brownfield Risk Assessment (SoBRA), Green Growth Platform (GGP) and CL:AIRE.
Across the board, we encourage and support all staff in working towards and achieving chartered status, improving their qualifications and gaining new skills and have assigned a dedicated budget for training.

Furthermore, we currently chair the Green Growth Platform business forum and Association for Consultancy and Engineering’s SME group. We have also spoken at a number of national and regional events, most recently discussing the impact of BIM on best practice for geotechnical and environmental consultancy in events in London and Manchester.

Our memberships play a key role in supporting the direction of our organisation, providing access to the latest developments in legislation, industry leading training and a vehicle to raise our views on issues affecting our industry.

In addition, we look to be actively involved in as many of these organisations as we can. Not only do we receive important information, but through these we also have the opportunity to influence the direction that the industry is taking.
Looking to the future, our aim is to continue the steady growth that that we have had over the last five years, whilst still aiming to maintain the special ingredients that make Geo-Environmental a great place to work. Our aim is to increase the amount of work we win in the Rail, Utility, Highways and EU markets over the next five years.

There is some uncertainty over the next 12 months, with the future of what environmental legislation will and will not be retained as a result of the ongoing Brexit negotiations. It is also uncertain how the industry will be impacted by the Brexit negotiations. Until we have more detail on these negotiations, it is very difficult to say just how we would be affected – positively or negatively. Longer term, we expect the future to be brighter. We anticipate greater levels of development to meet the shortages in housing and to facilitate improvement to key infrastructure. However, we also anticipate a greater future emphasis on development of brownfield land, investment in environmental protection and renewable energy.

Ultimately, we need to encourage young people to choose engineering as there are looming skill shortages over the next decade.

Company: Geo-Environmental Services Limited
Name: Glyn Evans
Email: [email protected]
Web Address: www.gesl.net and www.gesl.eu
Address: Unit 7, Danworth Farm, Cuckfield Road,