Managing, reporting, and striving to improve air emissions data is more crucial than ever for organizations striving to meet compliance targets and sustainability goals. In this edition of Voices of Cority, William Palmer sits down with Marciano (Rocky) Sanchez, a seasoned expert in environmental data management, to explore the complexities of air emissions reporting and the pivotal role software plays in simplifying these processes.
Before joining the Cority team over a decade ago, Sanchez earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and master’s in environmental engineering. He has worked within the pulp and paper industry as well as the oil and gas space. From navigating sector-specific challenges to understanding the implications of accurate data collection, Sanchez provides valuable insights into how businesses can leverage technology to reduce effort, enhance compliance, and drive better operational decisions.
Let’s dive into the conversation with William Palmer and Marciano Sanchez.
William Palmer (WP): What are some of the complexities associated with air emissions reporting and how does that impact scoped emission targets?
Marciano (Rocky) Sanchez (MS): I would say complexities vary across market sectors and operating areas. For example, Cority’s air product first began helping customers manage their Title V permits in the utility, refining, and chemical production market sectors. Each of these sectors has its own complexities, such as the types of emissions calculations they’re compiling or the operations they’re carrying out.
For example, the chemical production sector is considering flare operations from dehydration units or emissions from tanks, which involve complex calculation methodologies, high frequency monitoring, and continuous emissions monitoring. For upstream oil and gas customers, they have the complexity of aggregating emissions across hundreds or thousands of wellheads.
Fortunately, for Cority customers, they have reporting to easily and quickly compile ACCs, deviation reports, and special formatting reports like XML for GHG MRR reporting. Our air emissions solution can reduce the level of effort required to compile reports from days, weeks, or even months down to hours.
WP: What are some important considerations for air emissions management based on your experience and what is the value of software?
MS: The end goal of air emissions software should be the basis for setting it up. Based on an organization’s maturity level, these goals can span different requirements. At the facility level, for example, environmental teams primary concern is whether the operation is in compliance with regulations and standards.
A robust software will provide both minute, transactional level feedback, as well as wider, management insights. At the detailed level, EHS teams use software to recognize a deviation, whether it is valid, what its cause was, and what corrective action was taken, as well as risk flagged for the future. Whereas on a wider level, detecting continuous compliance issues will lead to decision to provide worker training, machinery maintenance and health, etc.
At the c-suite, air emission management software allows the incorporation of corporate initiatives regarding emission reduction. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act led to the Methane Emissions Reduction program due to which leadership and decision makers in the oil and gas sector are looking for ways to reduce their organizations’ methane emissions.
At the end of the day, software allows data visibility that leads to decisions to reduce operational expenses whether its operating parameters or equipment efficiency.
WP: What type of considerations need to be made for acquiring data?
MS: Typically, data enters an EHS system through one of three methods. The most common method when air emissions are being calculated and compiled is integration. Another common way is to rely on manual data entry through a mobile and desktop interface. Lastly, a bulk tool to upload data points, such as using an Excel upload template is also a common data acquisition method.
In each case of data acquisition, the data will need to be checked for completeness and validity. Fortunately, Cority’s system provides automation to check if a data set coming into the system is complete and whether calculations can be executed. As an example of data completeness, the system verifies at least 18 hours of data out of 24 to calculate and complete the associated compilation. An example of data validity is when an entered pH value of 20 will return an error in the system as it lies outside the possible range of pH.
WP: How does accurate air emissions data collection impact an organization’s environmental compliance and sustainability goals?
MS: Accurate air emissions data collection with a robust system produces essentially a breadcrumb trail of data points that have been based on regulatory compliance needs. The system allows complex data calculations to have integrity and the ability to adjust operations based on findings. For example, Cority’s Air solution utilizes calculation graphic visualizer that lets you have a line of sight into a process flow diagram, where you can see what the raw data inputs are, how they are used in calculations, and how they may be aggregated. This deep data, or even operational, equipment based, or facility wide roll up data can be used for Scope 1 emissions and sustainability reporting.
WP: What are some best practices for tracking air emissions data?
MS: One of the best practices for tracking air emissions data well is to begin with the end in mind. EHS teams will need to know before they feed the data, which reporting formats and KPIs they want their system to capture and calculate.
Similarly, the system has to collect enough attribute data, such as setting up equipment by equipment type, so that an organization can perform better analysis in the future of their environmental operations. In fact, in Cority’s experience, customers have derived insights from the collected data that would otherwise not have come to the surface, for example analyzing the data to conclude that equipment don’t operate as efficiently and EHS professionals can then put plans in places to address the emissions. When you track data well, you can make insightful business decisions and first address those pain points that have high return on investment and low effort to correct. These data-driven decisions at the end of the day have an added advantage of boosting shareholder value.
Read how a Cority’s Customer Stolthaven Terminals Ensures Compliance with Environmental Regulations While Reducing Operational Costs
WP: How can companies utilize operational data to make informed business decisions?
MS: There are a lot of cost savings that become evident when operational data is utilized well. With valid data fed into business intelligence tools, organizations are able to forecast their emissions not only in terms of compliance, but also forecasting the fees associated with those emission levels. This insight will in turn allow streamlining of operating procedures at a production line, for example.
The value continues at the operational level, where environmental supervisors can analyze emissions from different equipment and identify those with high emissions. A direct cost analysis can be conducted after identifying such equipment with low efficiency, and business decisions to upgrade or repair units can be made based on operational efficiency, with clarity on how long a new unit will pay for itself with the reduction in emissions fee and energy inefficiency costs.
WP: In terms of scalability, how does our software adapt to the evolving needs of businesses as they grow and regulations change?
MS: Cority is well positioned to handle large-scale acquisitions and has successfully done so in the past. A recent oil and gas customer comes to mind, where the customer acquired a competitor’s oil and gas operations and had to handle an addition of 1000 new well heads. Cority was able to scale up relatively quickly to crunch the large emissions data, as well as have the horsepower of a robust calculation engine to compute these added factors.
