Sustainability Auditing

Many of our projects and client relationships begin with comprehensive audits of energy and other resource usages to identify opportunities to reduce spending, cut carbon emissions, and contain economic business risk. Representative clients and projects include:
  • American University of Nigeria, where our month-long audit launched a four-year relationship with gratifying results.  We cut energy spending in half and established AUN has one of West Africa's most sustainable institutions
  • Neill Corporation, a Louisiana venture that distributes cosmetics and operates half a dozen salons and one restaurant. We audited the entire supply chain and developed a "makeover manual" that taught salon operators how to improve the environmental performance of their own facilities and operations
  • A vertically integrated coal company in rugged Alaska, including a surface mine, a four MW power plant with district heating, and a marine shipping terminal for export.  In concert with Remote Energy Solutions, we identified savings measures along the entire supply chain and at individual points along the way  
  • ​Two indigenous villages, one in rural Alaska and the other in the Chagras Valley of central Panama.  We worked with community leaders and NGOs to find opportunities to reduce energy poverty and increase security  
  • A massive molybdenum mine slated for eastern Nevada. This RES review was performed not on the operating mine (it hadn't yet been built) rather on the detailed development plans to identify opportunities to reduce operational spending, increase environmental performance, and engage public support. A similar pre-operational assessment was done for a copper mine in New Mexico, in this case not to start from scratch rather to resurrect a defunct facility.
​Reith Energy worked closely with the Alliance for Affordable Energy and   Tulane University to promote sustainability in the planning and post-disaster recovery of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. Besides serving on the  Sustainability Subcommittee of the Bring New Orleans Back Committee, we trained and supervised a team of Energy Corp Volunteers -- comprised of visiting AmeriCorp Volunteers and Low Income, Minority Youth -- in conducting sustainability audits of small businesses and providing guidance to their post-hurricane reconstruction.  

Renewable Energy Development

We celebrate all forms of renewable energy, sometimes helping our clients decide which generation strategy is best for them and their situation.  Projects include:
  • Siting, financing, and development planning for a ten megawatt solar plant in southern Yemen, to be operated in part to supply a nearby cement plan but also to sell energy into the grid.
  • Environment assessment and feasibility planning for a four megawatt hydropower retrofit to an existing irrigation diversion dam in northern Nigeria. Water from the dam supplies a nearby sugar mill, as will power from the retrofit.
  • Selection of renewable energy technology and advanced planning for a gold mine in Southern California; this work -- which addressed solar, microhydro, and cogeneration -- carried forward the results of a sustainability review.  Similarly advanced solar planning with RES was performed for a copper mine in New Mexico.
  • Biodiesel production from recycled vegetable oil in the Kibura District of Nairobi, Kenya. Reith Energy provided funding and expertise for this initiative -- led by Topher Mira and Ayla Reith -- to help Rwandan immigrants create a sustainable enterprise providing green fuel to the ecotourism industry
  • Provision of solar ovens, rocket stoves, and pedal pumps to a community of Nigerian farmers, herdsmen and their families
  • Cultivation of Jatropha curca by an indigenous village in Northern Nigeria. Originally envisioned as an oil source for transesterification into diesel for transport or power generation, Jatropha instead ended up being tested as a cooking fuel to replace wood cutting and as a feedstock for producing a disinfecting soap. 

Strategic Sustainability Planning

The best time for sustainability is when launching a venture, such as described above for a large molybdenum mine in Nevada, and as incorporated into the planning of two initiatives below.
  • Federal City in East New Orleans, which envisioned a former naval installation being transformed into mixed-use community that would serve as a beacon of sustainability transformation.  Reith Energy supported Futureproof NOLA in crafting a series of development pathways toward energy and carbon neutrality, for instance by establishing a smart grid powered by on-site generators supplied from upriver biodiesel producers.  Rio-thermal cooling and uber-green building design further enhanced the energy performance of the envisioned community.
  • The Ghanaian Ministry for Sanitation and Water Resources was recently launched with an eye toward advancing the country's sustainability through innovative resource management. Reith Energy advanced this goal by receiving inputs from a multiplicity of stakeholders and facilitating the development of the Ministry's inaugural five-year plan.
​​​Strategic planning support was also provided by Reith Energy to two universities -- Dillard University and American University of Nigeria -- and to the municipality of Cheneyville, a small town in central Louisiana.


Sustainability Training

Reith Energy has been contracted, most often through Rike Services, to provide training to companies and ministries seeking to enhance their environmental performance, including to incorporate the ISO 14000 and ISO 9000 guidelines for excellence and customer satisfaction. Clients include:
  • The Peruvian Ministry of Mining and Petroleum Resources
  • The Trinidad Ministry of Energy
  • The Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum and, a decade later, interim officials in the energy sector
  • Abu Dhabi Gas Liquefaction Company
  • ExxonMobil and Shell Petroleum in Nigeria
  • Visiting delegations to the US from Venezuela, China, Taiwan, and former Soviet States 

Client-specific Challenges

Reith Energy's contributions to client success include many projects that were dedicated toward the timely and cost-effective resolution of economic and environmental threats and challenges. Examples include 
  • Litigation support and remedial design for petroleum spills and chronic contamination
  • Commercialization of and EPA approval for a waste-derived products for beneficial reuse
  • Development of sustainable landscape designs for municipal parks, commercial facilities and a dozen residences
  • Litigation support for the Deputy Attorney General of Louisiana on the organic rule as applied to agricultural products
  • Environmental risk management and safety training for a research company developing advanced treatment technologies for toxic and radioactive waste
  • Policy analysis related to geothermal and nuclear power, and for the deployment of advanced energy technologies
  • Stakeholder engagement strategies for companies seeking to build social equity.​
  • Diversion of an environmentally damaging waste stream in Northern Nigeria into a job-creating enterprise making woven plastic products, paper stools, and buildings fashioned of bottle bricks