Tetra Tech CEO Dan Batrack and Orient Landscape CEO Qiaonv He signed a joint venture (JV) agreement in Beijing on June 18, 2014. Tetra Tech’s partnership with Orient Landscape, China’s largest landscaping company, paves the way to transform some of the largest cities in the world into greener communities.

Working together we can help design and update China’s cities to be greener, healthier, and more efficient by building on our U.S. experience in green infrastructure and low impact development techniques. Tetra Tech was at the forefront of the green infrastructure movement in the early 1980s, proposing innovative approaches to allow stormwater to slowly percolate into the ground instead of channeling it directly into streams. Tetra Tech has developed sophisticated models to predict where to locate best management practices in a watershed to achieve the greatest environmental benefits at the lowest cost.

Creating a green China is becoming a priority of China’s central government. It encapsulates the drive around environmental expectations to create sustainable communities as the nation continues its rapid development.

“Orient Landscape values Tetra Tech’s expertise in water and environmental protection to partner for this market,” says Andrew Parker, who leads Tetra Tech’s water resources management practice. “We bring high-end science and engineering to large scale projects—planning, analysis, and ecosystem restoration—a huge selling point to their large network of clients that includes private development companies and local governments. Orient Landscape provides design and construction expertise.”

Relations between Tetra Tech and Orient Landscape began with academic contacts of Tetra Tech’s Dr. Jenny Zhen, principal environmental engineer, a native of China and a graduate of Tsinghua University, China’s leading institution for higher education in engineering and science.

“Orient Landscape’s CEO and I were introduced in Beijing in April 2013,” Dr. Zhen says. “They visited us last summer and were very enthusiastic about working together through a formal joint venture. In August we signed a Memorandum of Understanding, and by October we were subcontracted on a green infrastructure conceptual design project.”

The firms reached an agreement in June for the new joint venture company tentatively called Beijing Orient Tetra Tech Ecological Technology Co., Ltd (pending approval from the China business registration agency).

The company’s primary service areas include:

• Ecological watershed restoration planning
• Urban stormwater management and design
• Water body and watershed modelling and management

Future service areas may include soil remediation, flood control, mine environmental reclamation-related modeling, port and harbor planning and design, and air quality management.

By forming a JV with Tetra Tech, the top-rated U.S. company in water, Orient Landscape gains credibility in areas in which it has limited project experience and established a presence in a new market immediately. The formal JV provides the means under Chinese law for authorities to contract for services. Orient Landscape will lead marketing efforts and securing projects for the JV, while Tetra Tech will provide technical leadership and expertise to the JV through subcontracts.