ECUS, based in Sheffield, is an independent, multi-disciplinary environmental consultancy. The company, whose name originates from its foundation as ‘Environmental Consultancy – Universityof Sheffield’ became a limited company in 2001. It was originally established as a commercial service by the University of Sheffield in 1986 and its continued growth and expansion of services has earned it an extensive track record serving private and public sector clients throughout the UK and across the world.
The company’s link to the University of Sheffield provides it with a number of unique capabilities:
- specialist technical expertise
- state of the art research and support facilities
- highly valued independence and impartiality
As a multi-disciplinary consultancy, ECUS offer its clients a unique, integrated, team approach to project management with in-house expertise in a wide range of technical areas. Their approach has benefited clients through cost and time savings and the provision of added value to environmental projects.
Equas was commissioned in February 2008 to build an ISO compliant Quality Management System for certification to ISO9001:2008. During the creation of this system the client added a requirement for ISO14001:2004 to the project. The combined Quality and Environmental Management System was completed by David Morgan, a Director of Equas and certified Lead Auditor, in September 2009 and certified to ISO9001:2008 by a UKAS-accredited Certification Body in the same month. Certification to ISO14001:2004 was delayed, at the client’s request, until November 2010.
Chris Routh, ECUS’s Managing Director, gave the following feedback:
“In November 2010, ECUS Ltd was successfully certified against ISO 14001:2004, adding this qualification to our existing ISO9001:2008 certification. This is a major step forward for us and I can honestly say that I cannot imagine completing the process without the Activ software and system. The thought of having to develop and run both a quality and environmental management system without web-based software is unimaginable now! We are making improvements to the way we do things all the time and with Activ we can make the changes and disseminate information to all our staff instantaneously, and all the amendments are tracked and logged. It would be a nightmare with a paper-based system.”