Sim your sustainability system: Software grapples with environmental uncertainties

Need to figure out the implications of how to allocate limited environmental resources on a company or a community?

GoldSim, a software development firm that got its start in modeling waste management scenarios, is working with a number of environmental agencies and well-known corporations to help apply the things it learned in dealing with radioactive waste to other environmental scenarios.

The company's Monte Carlo simulation software can be applied to many complex problems that businesses are grappling with as part of corporate social responsibility and sustainability programs, such as how to clean up a mine site cost-effectively AND environmentally, says Rick Kossik, principal and cofounder of GoldSim. It is typically run by engineers and scientists (someone with a quantitative background), although the latest version allows for the creation of dashboards so that business analysts and executives can run what-if models, he says.

While government work was the original focus of the software development firm, Kossik says more companies are adopting the GoldSim application for broader simulation exercises. Caterpillar, for example, is using it for strategic planning scenarios 20 years into the future.

To help build a following in the commercial world, GoldSim is giving its software away free to teachers and professors involved with appropriate environmental programs; anyone with a .EDU e-mail address can apply for the free license, Kossik says.

Here's a case study that describes various water resource applications that can be modeled with the GoldSim software. And here's another one that is focused on the impact of carbon dioxide sequestration.

Altogether, the company has more than 300 customers, many of which are listed here.

The GoldSim software, which runs on Windows, costs $4,000 to $20,000 depending on all the bells and whistles you request.