Due diligence

Support investors in the evaluation of mergers, acquisitions and other transactions.

Review facility designs, applicable regulations, permits, technical studies, management plans/reports and other documentation. Inspect target sites, facilities and surroundings. Interview site representatives, local specialists and regulators as appropriate. Develop and manage physical/chemical site sampling and analysis programs, when needed. Evaluate and report on the target sites’ permitting and regulatory compliance status and environmental/community risks and liabilities.

Help optimize project designs, particularly in the scoping and feasibility study phases, as well as reclamation and closure plans.

Provide environmental and community related input to trade-off studies/alternatives analyses, helping optimize process design, facility siting/layout, linear right-of-way alignment and facility closure to avoid or mitigate negative environmental/community impacts and permitting risk. Support design for optimized site reclamation to minimize post-closure maintenance and treatment obligations and reduce long term environmental liability. 

Engage and manage environmental technical specialists to conduct studies supporting project design optimization as needed. Document the alternatives analyses and impact mitigation/avoidance measures incorporated into proposed project designs for permitting and other public dissemination purposes. Prepare chapters on permitting and environmental/community management for scoping/feasibility studies and other technical reports.

Secure approval from government jurisdictions for development of greenfield projects, expansions, facility closure and site reclamation.

Identify the applicable permits and associated government agencies, approval hierarchies and timelines. Determine agencies’ expectations of project permitting deliverables, communicating strategically with regulators, using local specialists as needed, in order to definitively establish permitting requirements and maintain control over the permitting process. 

Develop and implement permitting management plans detailing work breakdown, resources, schedule and budget for generating permitting deliverables and securing regulatory approvals. Engage and manage environmental and other specialists to conduct supporting technical studies needed for specific permits, such as those regulating air emissions, water quality, impact assessment and others. 

Coordinate with project owners and engineering contractors to maintain project design consistency between engineering and permitting. Integrate permitting schedules with project engineering, procurement and construction schedules in order to align permitting inputs and approval milestones with overall project timelines.

Prepare environmental impact assessment reports/statements (EIA/EIS) that meet the requirements of regulators, project lenders and owners’ corporate management.

Apply guidance from the World Bank/IFC, Equator Principles and/or other relevant international and local standards, and coordinate with any lenders’ representatives/independent engineers to align with their expectations. Interface with project owners and engineering contractors to track project design evolution and support design optimization from an environmental/community perspective with the objective of avoiding or mitigating negative project impacts.

Engage and manage relevant specialty consultants, such as those specializing in meteorology, air quality, noise/vibrations, hydrology, hydrogeology, geochemistry, geology, oceanography, ecology, cultural resources, socioeconomics and potentially others. Manage the characterization and reporting of environmental/community baseline conditions by specialists, including field data collection and laboratory testing. 

Oversee the development and implementation of stakeholder engagement plans and identification of host community concerns and priorities. 

Manage predictive modeling and other supporting technical studies by specialists, and integrate the results to systematically evaluate environmental/community impacts and risks anticipated during exploration, construction, operation, closure and post-closure. Develop operational control measures designed to avoid, mitigate or compensate for negative impacts, ensuring that such operating commitments are acceptable to the owner/operator and responsive to identified community concerns. 

Prepare or review EIA/EIS reports and help deliver project presentations to local government, NGOs and the press.  

Deliver resettlement action plans when significant project impacts on settlements, farms or businesses cannot feasibly be avoided or sufficiently mitigated.

Apply guidance from the World Bank/IFC and/or other relevant international and local standards, and coordinate with any lenders’ representatives/independent engineers to align with their expectations. Engage and manage socioeconomic specialists for conducting stakeholder engagement, field data collection and impact assessment of the directly affected households, agricultural plots and businesses. Manage development of the proposed terms and conditions of resettlement, compensation, livelihood restoration and monitoring, coordinating between project owners, socioeconomic consultants, appraisers, the affected people and relevant government agencies. Review resettlement action plans prepared by socioeconomic specialists. 

Develop environmental management systems to achieve regulatory compliance, mitigate health/safety/environmental/community risks and liabilities, and maintain stakeholder acceptance.

Set up organization- or site-specific environmental management system frameworks, governing standards and operating practices consistent with ISO, OHSAS, OECD, UN, World Bank/IFC or other relevant standards. 

Produce specific underlying elements of environmental management systems, including technical standards, guidance documents, management plans and registers covering the following:

• Risks and impacts – identify and assess environmental aspects and impacts as well as community risks;
• Legal and other obligations – generate obligation registers incorporating permit conditions, regulatory requirements, impact assessment mitigation/compensation measures and stakeholder commitments;
• Operational controls – develop management plans for avoiding or mitigating impacts/risks associated with a variety of operational aspects such as exploration drilling, land acquisition, excavation/grading, habitat and cultural resource intervention, air emissions, noise and vibrations, liquid effluents/seepage/spills, waste generation, resource consumption, product output, transportation, employment, procurement, business practices, security personnel, facility closure and potentially others; and
• Performance measurement and monitoring – develop monitoring plans for physical/chemical sampling and analysis and other environmental monitoring, engaging local communities as appropriate.