A new collaboration led by the Snow & Ice Management Association (SIMA) aims to expand the Sustainable Salt Initiative (SSI) by setting recommended industry standards for salt application in winter snow and ice events. As part of the alliance, Viaesys Inc. will provide salt tracking research and the University of Waterloo will perform data analysis.

The expanded initiative was sparked from a University of Waterloo study that revealed property owners, facility managers and snow contractors often over-apply salt by as much as 20 percent due to concerns of facing injury claims, SIMA said.

“The goal of these expanded standards is to proactively address environmental concerns associated with salt use, and to create clear best practices that can be implemented easily and are based on solid business principles,” said Martin B. Tirado, a certified association executive and SIMA’s executive director.

More than 30 snow and ice management companies across 12 U.S. snowbelt states and Canadian provinces are collecting new data to support the development of the expanded SSI salt application best practices, according to SIMA, which builds on the existing SSI that tracked more than 50,000 tons of salt applied on more than 1,500 commercial properties in North America.

“The facility managers using the initial version of SSI guidelines are saving money, decreasing property damage and lowering their exposure to slip and fall claims,” said Phill Sexton, SIMA chief knowledge officer. “By gathering data for the next phase of SSI, we will add to our current success by providing best practice guidelines to reduce the amount of salt use, contribute to LEED credits and increase our efforts as good environmental stewards.”