In the latest episode of What the Tech, we sat down with Amit Bhargava, co-founder and CEO of EnviroApps Inc., a Calgary-based company making the transportation of dangerous goods safer by developing the first proven electronic hazmat shipping paper solution in Canada. Over the past five years, Amit and his team have been on a mission to replace what they call “CRAPI” paper processes—Cumbersome, Ridiculous, Archaic, Painful, and Inefficient.
By offering digital solutions instead of physical paperwork, EnviroApps delivers the visibility and control that teams need when documentation access is literally a matter of life and death. Because when emergency responders arrive at a hazmat incident, they need to know what they’re dealing with, and they shouldn’t have to risk their lives going into a dangerous truck to find paper documents.
The Frustration That Sparked a Solution
Amit didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur. “I never thought of being an entrepreneur,” he admits. “I’m a late-age entrepreneur, I would say.”
The idea for EnviroApps was born about nine years ago from Amit’s frustration with paper-heavy processes in his industry role. He was dealing with hazardous waste tracking—a process that theoretically worked, but practically failed constantly.
“When you have four carbon copies going with the waste and one is supposed to come back, does it ever happen? Well, half the times it doesn’t come back and you have a compliance gap there. You don’t know exactly where it landed.”
Amit teamed up with his high school buddy (also in Calgary), who had the technical expertise to complement Amit’s regulatory and compliance knowledge. They started by tackling hazardous waste tracking, then pivoted to the much larger problem: transportation of dangerous goods and hazmat.
Why This Matters More Than Efficiency
While digital transformation often focuses on efficiency, EnviroApps is solving something more fundamental: safety and accuracy.
As Amit explains, “This is critical information for emergency responders. That’s how they prepare when they’re called in to deal with an emergency. If they don’t know what they’re going to deal with, which is on paper in that truck, how are they going to deal with it? Nobody’s going into that truck to put my life in danger when there is a better way of doing it.”
Beyond emergency response, digital documentation solves problems that handwritten paper can’t:
- Legibility – Can emergency responders actually read the handwriting?
- Tamper-proof records – Digital timestamps and signatures create an auditable trail
- Insurance clarity – Adjusters can immediately access who did what and when
- Compliance validation – Real-time verification of driver training, certifications, and vehicle suitability
The Regulatory Breakthrough
In 2020, EnviroApps started working through Transport Canada’s Regulatory Sandbox Project to prove their solution. While the technology existed, regulations were lagging behind.
The recent breakthrough? Transport Canada has now approved the EnviroApps platform itself, not just individual client implementations. This is massive for adoption because it removes a significant hurdle—companies no longer need to go through their own approval process with Transport Canada. They can leverage EnviroApps’ approval directly.
“The recognition this brings is immense because now we have that buildup of trust, which also removes a few hurdles on the adoption side,” Amit notes.
Beyond Paperwork: Enhancing the Entire Workflow
EnviroApps isn’t just digitizing forms—they’re enhancing safety across the entire transportation workflow by:
- Validating that transporter companies have current TDG (Transportation of Dangerous Goods) training
- Verifying all required certifications and vehicle suitability before transport begins
- Reducing driver errors during unloading by ensuring they connect to the correct tanks
- Providing automated data transmission to emergency responders (following the European model)
“It’s not just about shipping documents or the critical information, but we are validating things for our shipper clients… making sure everything is validated ahead of time,” Amit explains.
The Calgary Advantage
EnviroApps has been in Calgary for 28 years—all of Amit’s networks, including his co-founder, are there. The ecosystem has been crucial to their growth, particularly Platform Calgary, which provided early acceleration support in 2019 when Amit was still building EnviroApps as a side project.
“The Calgary ecosystem is very collaborative and everybody tries to help,” Amit notes. “It’s such an amazing place to be.”
That collaborative spirit helped Amit avoid classic early-stage mistakes and connect with the right partners to move from side hustle to full-time venture in 2022.
What’s Next
The vision is global. Canada has figured out how to allow electronic shipping documents. The United States has never had an electronic hazmat shipping paper solution—EnviroApps is working on changing that. They’re also exploring opportunities in India (Amit’s home country, where regulations have removed digital hurdles) and the Middle East.
“This is a worldwide problem,” Amit says. “It’s a matter of time when we’ll be talking about, ‘Are you still doing this on paper?’ Like that’s absolutely abnormal. You’re a laggard. We’ll get there.”
The pace may feel slow—that’s the nature of regulatory change—but the direction is clear. EnviroApps is building consensus within Canada to go digital, and expansion across North America and beyond is on the horizon.
Key Takeaways
Safety trumps efficiency – The real value isn’t just faster processes; it’s protecting emergency responders and the public with accessible, accurate information.
Regulatory approval is currency – Getting platform-level approval from Transport Canada removed adoption barriers and validated the solution.
Ecosystem matters – Calgary’s collaborative tech community, especially Platform Calgary, provided crucial support during the early stages.
Global problems need persistent solutions – Changing paper-based processes in highly regulated industries takes time, but the impact is worth it.
As Amit puts it: “A lot of people get shocked when they first learn—are we still doing this on paper? Such an important thing.”
Not for much longer.
