Start small, thinking big
GREAT RESULT: The IEMA team, from left to right, Sophie Nicholas - Senior Environmental Consultant, Andrew Hutton - Managing Director & Principal Consultant, Tawna Ryan - Graduate Environmental Scientist.
Victory in the Start Up Superstar category at this year's Lake Macquarie Business Awards was a great finish to a great first year for Andrew Hutton, founder and managing director of Integrated Environmental Management Australia (IEMA).
"We have worked very hard in our first year to set up and establish a consulting business that offers specialist environmental management and advisory services to our clients in the mining and agricultural sectors," Mr Hutton said. "Receiving this award caps of a great first year, recognising that the hard work and the approach we have taken to set up the business has paid off.
"It is humbling to receive this acknowledgement from within such a diverse range of start-up companies based in Lake Macquarie."
Mr Hutton founded IEMA in mid 2018 having spent 25 years working in Environmental Management and Executive management roles in operations and consulting.
Since inception IEMA has grown to four employees with over 40 years of combined experience across multiple sectors.
"There was a clear gap in the market for more experienced consultants to be less caught up in executive management roles and project direction and for them to be more accessible to clients to sit alongside aside them in partnership to deliver projects," Mr Hutton said.
"By starting a small firm we have provided them access to experienced professionals who are nimble and flexible without the bureaucracies of having to engage the larger firms."
IEMA's team has experience delivering projects across a range of areas including mine closure planning and execution, risk assessment, operational review, environmental compliance, transactional due diligence, auditing, stakeholder engagement and the implementation of management systems.
"Our key pillars are experience, relationships, quality and sensible outcomes," Mr Hutton said. "Our clients are across the mining, extractives, gas and agricultural industries and includes Glencore, Rio Tinto, Bathurst Resources, BT Mining, Centennial Coal, Calibre Engineering, the NT Government, Port Waratah Coal Services, ProTen, Hunter Valley Operations, and the NSW Government."
Staff are IEMA's No.1 assett, and giving them the tools to do the job has been critical to success.
"We are early adopters of App technology and the associated online and cloud based platforms so that we are delivering projects more efficiently than our competitors," Mr Hutton said. "We are actively using technology to improve our efficiency in project delivery including the use of cloud-based technology which enables us to take our virtual office to our client anywhere in the world."
The future looks bright for IEMA with a range of new projects in New Zealand and Australia coming on line.
"We are looking to grow the business in the coming years to increase our size and capability so that we can continue to deliver quality project outcomes for our core clients," Mr Hutton said. "We want to continue to build on the great start and ensure that we continue to enjoy coming to work every day whilst maintaining our core value of 'work to live - not live to work'."
IEMA is based in Belmont North. For more information, call 0409 288 909, email andrew.hutton@iema.com.au or visit www.iema.com.au.
