COOE was founded in 1992, initially trading as Natural Resources Services Pty Ltd (NRS). The company name was changed in 2008 to COOE to capture the Australian origin of the company, the new directions in carbon emissions and the core value of the business in taking care of our environment.

COOE/NRS was founded by Joe Mifsud, an environmental science pioneer starting with Alcoa in Western Australia in the early 1980s. Joe has been involved in large scale environmental projects in Australia and internationally. Prior to starting COOE he had already built a name for himself as a leading industry professional.

In the early 90´s, NRS began offering technical support services in environmental science and management including:

• research and development of appropriate technology for mine rehabilitation;
• investigation and management of acid leachate from mines and caustic tailings from bauxite smelters;
• marine impact assessments for petroleum exploration in the Arafura Sea;
• mangrove and marine impact assessment from Coastal Developments.

In 1994, COOE / NRS expanded its services into secondments of professional staff, including assignment at Misima Mine in PNG and in the Philippines. The core business expanded into:

• Evaluating and monitoring the impacts of deep sea submarine tailings disposals;
• Marine impact assessments (coral reef, seagrass beds and mangroves);
• Tropical rainforest ecosystem monitoring;
• Coordinating and managing major environmental incidents (particularly the 3Mm3 tailings spill from Marcopper Mine into the Boac River, estuary, marine and coastal environment in the Philippines);
• Training both expatriate and local environmental field staff;
• Implementing environmental management and monitoring systems.

In 2000 NRS moved operations from Darwin to Adelaide. This move opened new opportunities in the upstream sector of the mining industry with a major 5 year marine monitoring project for the world's largest lead smelter in Port Pirie. Several assignments were also undertaken for the World Bank and the Zambian Government to address large scale environmental and social legacy issues of mining in the Zambian Copper Belt.

In 2004 environmental staff secondment service expanded to include graduate level staff supported by experienced COOE professionals, addressing the need of maintaining an environmental service while client's staff took long term leave or during peak work periods. With the mining boom in South Australia, NRS assisted its clients in preparing Environmental Impact Statements (EISs). Mining and Rehabilitation Plans (MARPs), developing Environmental Management Systems, establishing operational monitoring programs and training new staff. The Coastal Development environmental impact assessments and management plans business also expanded.

In 2008, with the new name - COOE offered a more sophisticated level of service:

• COOE upgraded its management systems to be compliant with ISO9001 (Quality), ISO4801 (OHS) and ISO 14001 (Environment), which were externally audited by LockForce and accredited by Rio Tinto in April 2010.
• The company moved from a purely consulting role to encompass the hands on expertise that was required by our clients
  • Supervision of the earthworks associated with the rehabilitation of a waste rock dump at Telfer into a mesa landform.
  • Launched COOE Green, a branch of COOE that handles all our tree planting, direct seeding, irrigation systems and site weed / pest control.
• Expanded our field of operations in the marine environment sector to include discharge management and monitoring from solar salt fields and desalination plants.

COOE today is a well established company that understands its client's needs and delivers a quality product at very competitive rates. COOE continues to grow in a stable manner addressing client new needs and is now proud to offer a range of environmental services that satisfy our client's environmental planning, research, management, analysis and monitoring requirements.

The success of COOE is attributed to our team's passion and commitment for taking Care Of Our Environment and of our client's needs.

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