Australia, awards and a lot of new faces: how 2024 shaped up for APEM Group

2024 was a year of change and global growth for APEM Group. We opened our first Australian office, located in Melbourne, marking a significant milestone in establishing a permanent presence in Australia and developing a regional hub for the Asia Pacific region. A new Environment team joined in Australia to support the offshore wind and broader energy sector, supported by in-country Legal, People and Finance hires.

Our strategic expansion in Australia continued as Biosis, one of Australia’s leading ecology and heritage consultants, joined APEM Group in June and Attexo, an Australian renewable energy-focused strategic advisory and environmental consultancy joined the Group in September.

APEM Group scientific teams across the world worked tirelessly to support net-positive projects for clients in the water, renewables and infrastructure sectors:

• Our BioLabs team analysed 2,307 freshwater and marine samples from 44 different projects, detecting new invasive species in freshwater environments and testing eDNA monitoring techniques.
• Our Aerial Survey technicians flew for 2,060 hours in 677 flights – nearly 50 times around the world non-stop.
• We submitted project consent applications for over 10GW of renewable energy in UK and Ireland (if built that’s enough to power more than 8 million homes).
• Our Marine Wildlife Surveys team processed over 1.5 million images, from counting sheep on remote islands to detecting gulls from the air.
• We did our bit for bats: Aspect Ecology undertook 285 bat surveys using 127 bat detectors, 1,103 hand held detectors and 755 infra-red cameras. Woodrow also marked an incredible 20 years of working with Bat Conservation Ireland at the Bat Ball in October.
• AQUAFACT and GoBe are collaborating with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to develop environmental guidelines for Ireland’s offshore renewable energy sector.
• APEM Group worked in new territories including the Baltic Sea and on ambitious cross-continental projects for the renewables sector.

We hosted a series of webinars to inform offshore wind development in Australia. We explored the need for accurate data to detect impacts on seabirds and marine wildlife and looked at the challenges of offshore wind coexisting with shipping, navigation and the ports industry. You can watch our webinar recordings here.

Our teams continued to innovate with award-winning solutions. NASH Maritime won ‘SME of the Year’ at the Maritime UK Awards 2024. Our Continuous Water Quality Monitoring was awarded ‘Pollution Mitigation of the Year’ at the Water Industry Awards. We established an Innovation and Product Development programme, with six innovation projects under way and another six in development. Keep an eye on our news page for more digital and tech transformations in 2025.

University of Melbourne student Amanda Poh was announced as the 2024 Daniel Gilmore Scholarship recipient, which was established in memory of our colleague Dan, whose passion for the natural world inspired us during his 21 years with Biosis.

Behind the scenes, our People team welcomed 243 new faces to APEM Group in 2024, boosting headcount and capability across all areas of the Group. Read some of our new joiner stories here. We also supported over 700 hours of paid volunteer leave and matched individual staff donations to charity to over £4,500. It was all hands on deck as AQUAFACT and Macro Works moved into new offices to support our growth in Ireland.

Thank you to our teams and clients in helping APEM Group solve the biggest environmental problems through the provision of globally leading scientific and data-led advice. Here’s to a successful 2025!