Forecasting the Costs of Environmental Liabilities

Forecasting environmental liabilities has been at the core of WSP Environment & Energy's consulting practice since the company’s inception. Our projects frequently involve collecting information to forecast the size and scope of environmental liabilities. Sometimes, WSP Environment & Energy collects the technical data needed to develop costing, but just as often, WSP Environment & Energy has been called on to quantify liabilities based on data gathered by others. As a result, WSP Environment & Energy has developed several approaches to estimate accurately the environmental liability associated with a contaminated site. The approach used depends on the business need and the information and resources available.

SEC Disclosure

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) have been pressing companies to improve their financial disclosure of environmental liabilities, largely resulting from the cleanup of contaminated sites under Superfund and other programs. This requires companies to strike a balance between long and costly efforts to collect sufficient data to pinpoint liability costs and minimal efforts that will grossly over or underestimate those costs. Following SEC and Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) guidelines, WSP Environment & Energy works with its clients in applying costing models to estimate and compile environmental liabilities for financial reporting purposes.

WSP Environment & Energy has developed a Simplified Environmental Liabilities Reporting Program to facilitate this process.