From data gaps to defensible decisions:
how Tonkin made environmental due diligence smarter

Introduction & context

Tonkin is a national infrastructure company delivering a wide range of environmental investigation, remediation and due diligence projects for government authorities and private sector developers. As Discipline Principal for Environmental Services, Dean Noske, leads the National Contaminated Land Assessment team, helping clients manage environmental risk across infrastructure assets and development sites.
Like many environmental consultants, the team works in a demanding environment where they must balance technical complexity, tight project timeframes, budget pressures and evolving regulatory expectations. In this context, access to reliable environmental information is critical to delivering practical, defensible outcomes for clients.
 

The challenge before Lotsearch

Before using Lotsearch, the team relied on manual searches across multiple data sources to support environmental due diligence and contaminated land assessments.
This process was time-consuming, inconsistent and carried significant risk, particularly on large infrastructure and government projects where missing key information could affect early-stage assessments and downstream decisions.
One complex corridor project, involving numerous historical land uses, highlighted the need for a faster, more reliable and more accurate information source. Conducting searches manually created the risk of missing vital information, potentially impacting the preliminary conceptual site model and subsequent assessment works.

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The solution – why Lotsearch

Tonkin now uses Lotsearch Environmental Risk Reports as a trusted and essential part of its Preliminary Site Investigation process.
What stood out was the speed and efficiency with which Lotsearch consolidates large volumes of complex information into reports that are clear, comprehensive and easy to interpret. Compared with manual research, this has delivered significant time savings, improved confidence in the data being relied on, and reduced the compliance risk of overlooking something important on complex projects.
By providing a reliable and defensible information source upfront, Lotsearch has become an integral part of the team’s workflow.

 

The experience of working with Lotsearch

The experience of working with Lotsearch has been exceptionally positive.
The reports are consistently high quality, reliable and delivered with the speed needed to meet demanding project deadlines. The information is clearly presented and well organised, significantly reducing the need for additional verification and giving the team confidence that their preliminary assessments are robust and defensible.
As a result, Lotsearch has become a trusted part of Tonkin’s formal investigation process.

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The results: impact & outcomes

The impact has been tangible.
On one project involving waste soil classification, the client initially declined a Preliminary Site Investigation due to time constraints. Early laboratory results identified unusually high PAH and TRH concentrations concentrated in a narrow section of the site.
Once the client proceeded with a PSI using Lotsearch, the historical records immediately identified a 1920s coal tar road alignment running through that same area, clearly explaining the contamination source. Further investigation also linked other hydrocarbon detections to a former mechanics garage that had operated nearby in the 1950s.
In this case, Lotsearch provided the historical context needed to accurately interpret the site, validate the Conceptual Site Model and ensure the correct waste classification was applied.
More broadly, using Lotsearch has significantly improved the team’s ability to meet both client and regulatory expectations. Quick access to accurate, comprehensive environmental data allows the team to validate Conceptual Site Models early and make better-informed strategic decisions. It has reduced the risk of data gaps in Preliminary Site Investigations and helped deliver compliant, defensible reports even under pressure.
The benefits have been substantial across time, efficiency and confidence. By removing the manual burden of data collection and interpretation, Lotsearch frees up technical specialists to focus on higher-value analysis and decision-making.

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In three words?

Reliable. Efficient. Comprehensive.