SME Profile: Joe Nicolette, VP, Ecosystem Service Economics Montrose, Environmental Group

Joe Nicolette E+E Leader

by | Jan 19, 2023

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Joe Nicolette E+E Leader

Joe Nicolette is the Vice President of Ecosystem Service Economics at Montrose Environmental Group. He has almost four decades of experience in environmental consulting across 18 countries, with a career focus on environmental impact assessment, site risk management, remediation, natural resource damage assessment (NRDA), oil spill response, fisheries ecology, and ecosystem service valuation.

He was one of the co-authors of the first formalized framework for net environmental benefit analysis (NEBA), focused on site remediation and restoration, and developed a NEBA-based comparative assessment approach (NEBA-CA) that applies to both Oil & Gas and Wind infrastructure decommissioning. Integrating the flow of ecosystem services is critical when considering commissioning and decommissioning alternatives since decisions, directly and indirectly, affect future generations. NEBA-CA is an assessment approach being used to collect and assess this data. The formalized NEBA-CA framework will be published by the Frontiers in Marine Science Journal in early 2023.

Joe pioneered the ecological economics habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) methodology used in ecological service valuation before HEA became codified into NRDA and CERCLA regulations. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Resources Management from Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Science in Fisheries from the University of Minnesota.

Offshore Decommissioning at Montrose

“We are breaking ground in terms of R&D for offshore decommissioning decision-making. This is evidenced by a number of publications recently put out by our NEBA team.” -Joe Nicolette, VP of Ecosystem Service Economics

Are plastics a potential liability as part of your portfolio? Plastic pollution is a widespread problem affecting the marine environment with over eight million tons of debris entering the oceans via coastal nations each year. Recently, the ecological risks associated with the long-term degradation of plastic-containing infrastructure in offshore oil/gas fields have garnered focus from regulators as they evaluate decommissioning strategies for these facilities.

As part of our offshore decommissioning net environmental benefit analysis-based comparative assessment (NEBA-CA) process Montrose staff led the development and publication of a novel, quantitative approach expressly for this purpose. For more details on this approach, take a look at Montrose’s peer-reviewed scientific paper recently published in the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) Journal.

Upcoming Event

Join Joe and his colleagues on Wednesday, February 1, for a discussion on how NEBA-CA can create the best offshore infrastructure decommissioning solution.

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