SCS Engineers announces Steven Stewart, PE, PMP, is now leading the firm’s Sustainability-CAA-GHG practice. Stewart has twenty-five years of experience within the environmental consulting and manufacturing industry, providing strategic thinking related to project planning, regulatory strategy, and developing sustainability initiatives that achieve goals.
Sustainability plans designed without environmental experts who have designed, built, and operated solutions do not always assure intended goals. SCS’s Sustainability practice combines Clean Air Act (CAA) solution experts and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) experts to create accurate emissions inventories, identify GHG reduction opportunities, and provide third-party verification of GHG emission inventories and reduction credits.
Stewart leads projects related to energy efficiency measures, GHG reduction, carbon sequestration, water reuse and stewardship, and solid waste minimization and recycling and circularity programs. His broad experience also expands into permitting and compliance, environmental management systems, long-term environmental planning, and environmental sustainability capital projects. His manufacturing background in managing large Capital Projects and Environmental programs provides clients additional value when preparing proformas and business cases for sustainability and environmental projects.
Combining Expertise for Excellence
Stewart pulls from a deep bench of expertise at SCS to offer more accurate and targeted plans. The Clean Air Act touches virtually every aspect of economic activity in the United States. It requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for certain pollutants to protect public health and welfare nationwide. The Act provides a comprehensive set of regulations to monitor air toxins and requires major sources of air pollution to obtain detailed operating permits. The CAA also requires states to adopt enforceable plans to achieve and maintain air quality standards and control harmful emissions that might drift across state lines.
SCS has a long history of working with manufacturing, landfills, dairies, and food processing operations to generate and sell GHG credits by voluntarily installing recovery systems and selling methane as fuel. Even greater benefits are available when methane is used as renewable energy to offset natural gas or coal-fired power generation, considering that it is a GHG 28 times more potent than CO2. The firm supports clients with solutions to capture or destroy methane and other emissions, which can have significant environmental benefits. Destroying or isolating methane via combustion, carbon casting, or carbon sequestration can reduce GHG potential by 95 percent.
The firm’s Greenhouse Gas experts perform emissions inventories, estimate GHG reductions, or provide third-party verification of GHG emission inventories and reduction credits. These professionals develop Inventory Management Plans for GHG emissions estimates and offsets and work with the Sustainability team to develop the most effective strategies for reducing GHG emissions, including costs, designing, constructing, and operating projects to reduce emissions.
Value is Client Satisfaction
SCS Engineers serves a broad and diverse base of clients. Each has different needs, from large national accounts to municipalities to local businesses. We know that there are three things that every SCS customer wants: a dedicated partner, insight to help them run their business efficiently, and technical services that deliver quality deliverables that result in the biggest impact possible.
SCS delivers these elements by embracing new proven technology, incorporating circularity, and drawing from a deep bench of professional engineers, scientists, and technologists with field experience into everything we produce. This is why SCS is one of North America’s longest-running environmental engineering firms.
Over the years, SCS has expanded and hired many talented people. Employees guide the firm, maintaining the founders’ focus and culture of adopting their clients’ environmental challenges as their own and fostering a culture of success for clients, employees, and communities.
SCS has won multiple awards for helping clients minimize waste generation and greenhouse gases, effectively managing recycling, collection, and disposal operations, renewable energy, safely cleaning up contaminated properties, treating wastewater, protecting groundwater, and creating technologies used to accurately track, safely operate, design and build systems for longevity.
Additional Information and Resources:
In March 2024, the EPA launched a new Office of Climate Adaptation and Sustainability that supports efforts to build resilience to climate change and promote sustainability in support of the agency’s mission and its partnerships. Federal agencies have been making progress in efforts to build adaptive capacity and resilience across federal operations.
Today’s publication of EPA’s 2024-2027 Climate Adaptation Plan is part of a coordinated release of more than twenty federal agencies’ climate adaptation plans that highlight efforts across the federal government. The Plan describes agency actions to address the impacts of climate change and help build a more climate-resilient nation. The plan expands the agency’s efforts to ensure its programs, facilities, workforce, and operations are increasingly resilient to climate change impacts.
Highlights from EPA’s 2024-2027 Climate Adaptation Plan are included below.
Fostering a Climate-Ready Workforce – The EPA is building a climate-literate workforce through ongoing education and training to ensure staff are equipped with an understanding of projected climate impacts, the vulnerability of EPA programs to these impacts, and adaptation approaches. One example is the agency-wide Climate Conversations webinar series helping to build a community of practice and encourages peer-to-peer sharing of experiences.
Building Facility Resilience – EPA is continuing to conduct facility resiliency assessments to identify vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate change and make recommendations to increase facility resilience.
Developing Climate-Resilient Supply Chains – EPA has included an assessment of climate hazard risk as part of its overall Agency Supply Chain Risk Management plan. The agency plans to conduct supply chain risk assessments under the Program Management Improvement Accountability Act and the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act in fiscal year 2024.
Integrating Climate Resilience into External Funding Opportunities – EPA is modernizing its financial assistance programs to encourage investments by communities and Tribes that are more resilient in an era of climate change. To support this effort, the EPA launched an internal Climate-Resilient Investments Clearinghouse website to help managers of financial assistance programs incorporate climate adaptation and resilience considerations in the investment decisions the EPA makes each day.
Applying Climate Data and Tools to Decision Making – EPA is equipping communities and the recipients of financial resources with the tools, data, information, and technical support they need to assess their climate risks and develop the climate-resilience solutions most appropriate for them.
Integrating Climate Adaptation into Rulemaking Processes – EPA is integrating climate adaptation into its rulemaking processes where appropriate and in keeping with our statutory authorities to ensure they are effective even as the climate changes. For example, on March 14, 2024, EPA finalized a rule requiring a broad array of facilities that manage hazardous materials to develop response plans to prepare for the largest foreseeable discharges in adverse weather conditions, including more extreme weather conditions expected as the climate changes. EPA is also committed to applying climate change and environmental justice policy principles through National Environmental Policy Act reviews.
Additional Climate Adaption Resources:
Sonya Betker is a zero waste and sustainability expert who brings decades of experience to SCS. Betker is a TRUE Advisor and a Sustainable Excellence Associate supporting her clients in sustainable resource management and waste reduction practices that minimize waste by reusing as many products as possible.
Betker’s expertise comes from leading regional, national, and global sustainability and circular economy programs for public and private clients by taking a holistic approach to lead and develop strategic programs. She is particularly proficient at maximizing partnerships for more efficient sustainability programs. Much of her experience has been in business management and brokering before her transition to environmental consulting.
Creating connections between stakeholders and excellent communication has been a constant throughout her career. These traits are especially valuable in zero waste and sustainability planning because they involve multiple stakeholders, including the public.
“Sonya brings field experience and a proven track record driving sustainability, building the business case highlighting potential revenue gains and cost savings with buy-in to sustainability,” states Betsy Powers, vice president and project director. “That provides more successful paths to circular systems, and our clients appreciate our sensitivity to costs.”
Betker’s background includes a B.S. in Business Management – Sustainability from the University of Wisconsin–Stout and over ten professional affiliations and certifications. She has a deep understanding of the most current sustainability issues, tools, and techniques and can communicate sustainability topics to diverse audiences. She can accurately assess sustainability risks and opportunities in an organization, community, or industry.
Betker is an author recognized in industry publications for her article “The future relationship of sustainability and traditional waste and recycling may be a key piece in solving our waste puzzle,” and featured in “Women in Waste” for her leadership skills.
“I’ve learned to look at the big picture of waste and recycling,” Betker said. “I like to look for commodities within markets and help with that circularity—reframing waste as a resource. Stopping or reusing food waste is a particularly rewarding area for many municipalities and businesses.”
Additional Resources:
SCS Engineers announces that Erik Martig is now the project director and organics leader in the Southwest region covering California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. Martig’s expertise in compost systems design, operations, and management aligns with and supports SCS clients moving to organics management as a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases and reuse organic material productively. His office is in Pleasanton, California.
As a Certified Compost Operations Manager, Martig has over a decade of experience producing results for public and private clients such as L.A. Compost, San Mateo County Resource Conservation District, The Heal Project Farm, and clients across the U.S.
SCS Engineers’ Organics Management teams help communities evaluate their waste streams and create custom programs using circular economy strategies that produce high-grade compost. Instead of treating organic material as waste filling up landfills, they produce a product good for the environment. These programs are launching all across the U.S. in small and large communities because they are effective and sustainable but require expansive knowledge and training.
Martig’s project management expertise includes developing project charters and teams that serve all stakeholders, custom design, environmental compliance, financing/funding from grant programs, and safety to create and sustain long-term programs. SCS provides pilot programs for entities wishing to test before they invest in the technology.
Among his professional accolades, Martig has presented at industry events such as the BioCycle West Coast Conference and the U.S. Composting Council to share insights with others. The Solid Waste Association of North America recognized him with its Unsung Heroes Award in 2015 for his work as Program Manager at GrowNYC, developing and increasing New York City’s network of residential food scrap drop-off sites.
Robert Lange, former director of the Bureau of Waste Prevention Reuse and Recycling at DSNY, stated,
Erik Martig has played a critical role in developing New York City’s network of residential food scrap drop-off sites. As Program Manager at GrowNYC, Martig significantly grew the number of drop-off opportunities at farmers’ markets throughout all five of NYC’s boroughs. Additionally, he developed a system for managing the organics collected through the drop-off program, which included providing a portion of the organics collected to community-based composting sites and thereby generating high-quality finished compost to be used by local public greening initiatives.
“Community-Scale Composting Systems,” A Comprehensive Practical Guide for Closing the Food System Loop and Solving Our Waste Crisis by James McSweeney highlights Martig’s urban composting programs as best practices.
“As the Southwest team lead for SCS Engineers’ composting programs, Martig brings a fresh perspective to our clients who expect high quality and technical expertise to advance their programs,” says Vice President Greg McCarron, SCS’s national expert on organics. “They’ll get that from Erik and his team.”
Composting and Organics Management Resources:
