On Wednesday, October 28th, Envirosuite will organize the ‘The 5 Stages of Community Engagement' webinar on the various unpleasant impacts of treatment plants, such as odours, and how a community engagement strategy will help address the issue. We speak to the organizers of the event to learn the webinar's benefits, its main goals and whom the webinar is aimed at.
Question: On Wednesday October 28th, Envirosuite will organize the ‘The 5 Stages of Community Engagement' webinar. What is the purpose of this webinar?
Answer: Environmental and Operational Managers at wastewater treatment plants can receive several hundred odour complaints a year. Growing populations have gradually moved closer to plants. Public perception of these is dynamic and subject to change, often very quickly. Maintaining a social licence to operate is now directly related to a treatment plant’s efficiency.
At Envirosuite we have identified levels of community engagement on a scale of 1-5 that each require unique strategies to achieve social licence to operate. Executing the correct strategy for your site will ultimately boost operational efficiency.
During this webinar, Andres Quijano will share valuable strategies for the different levels of community engagement. The strategies will amongst others cover how to engage with surrounding communities and thereby strengthen the social licence to operate.
Q: What will be the main topics of discussion?
A: In this webinar we will share how your water facility can:
- Avoid reputational damage and limit downtime by executing strategies based on the specific level of community engagement your plant requires – today and tomorrow.
- Respond to odour complaints and engage with communities with easy-to-understand environmental data.
- Educate surrounding communities on operational, maintenance and expansion plans by delivering tailored community engagement programs.
At Envirosuite we have identified levels of community engagement on a scale of 1-5 that each require unique strategies to achieve social licence to operate
Q: Andres Quijano, Solution Engineer Designer, will be hosting this event. Could you tell us a bit more about his career path?
A: Andres has over 15 years of experience creating integrated hardware and software solutions that assist environmental professionals and site operators to optimize their management plans. He has played the lead role in implementing groundbreaking solutions at wastewater treatment plants across around the world by providing proactive environmental management systems including solutions for odour, water quality, air quality, noise and vibration.
Q: What is your webinar’s target audience?
A: The target audience for this webinar is essentially people who work in Water Utilities or local Water Authorities roles within Operations, Environment, Sustainability and Community departments. As Envirosuite is a recognized partner for many sectors such as Wastewater facilities, Airport and Mines, the webinar talks to many industry sectors where this topic is currently relevant.
Q: Why do you think this webinar is a must for Smart Water Magazine’s readers?
A: As communities grow, ageing water infrastructure built on the outskirts of communities has gradually moved within moved within odour control buffer distances. Facing increasingly stringent regulations and communities that continually demand more from industry, wastewater operations have increased expenditure on control and tracking of odour impacts.
New ways of doing business need to be geared towards helping water authorities avoid impacting the communities they serve. Operational efficiency can also be improved by being supported by high quality analysis that is delivered to the people that need it, when they need it.
Watch the On-Demand Webinar here.