Environmental Law

South Africa has prioritised sustainable development. This includes care of the environment and forethought into the consequences of a development on the environment (underpinned by the National Environmental Management Act and associated regulations).

As a pioneer in the field of environmental law, HSG offers holistic environmental expertise to our clients. This includes the resources of our Environmental Attorney and Environmental Specialist.

Tasks in this offering include:

• The compilation of project environmental proposals, Environmental Management Programmes (EMPrs) and environmental reports, interpreting of specialist and technical reports
  
  
• Conducting field surveys to establish a baseline condition for a site or area of consideration, and the production of environmental scanning reports
  
  
• The undertaking of the role of an Environmental Assessment Practitioner and/or the management of the Environmental Authorisation Processes, such as the Basic Assessment Report (BA), and Scoping and Environmental Impact Reports (EIA)
  
  
• Subcontracting and supervising the required specialists for the BA or EIA process
  
  
• Acting as an Environmental Control Officer (ECO) to ensure the environmental compliance with the environmental authorisation of all contractors
  
  
• Undertaking Project Development Applications and/or Preliminary Environmental Assessments
  
  
• Reporting to the client on a regular basis detailing the status of the application
  
  
• Providing legal environmental interpretation and opinion to clients
  
  
• Appealing and/or amending environmental authorisations