SERVICES

Service At-A-Glance

• Determining business-appropriate performance standards and targets for compliance, voluntary, and corporate sustainability programs
• Developing effective strategies to meet regulatory compliance requirements
  • Country-specific regulatory framework interpretation, public policy analysis and development, permitting, registrations, agency collaboration and negotiation, litigation support, and enforcement advice
• Environmental asset performance monitoring and evaluation

SERVICE OVERVIEW

ALIGNING YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL OUTCOMES WITH THE STATE OF THE SCIENCE & POLICY FRAMEWORKS

This service is a consulting engagement where our professional advisors help you understand the state of restoration science, interpret relevant local, national, and global policy frameworks, protocols, and standards and align your activities to achieve the desired environmental outcomes. We identify and recommend the appropriate performance standards and targets based on best available science and your initiatives, goals, and desired timing.

The results for many of our clients have included the adoption of best-fit metrics and an improved understanding of the types and amounts of environmental performance outcomes they can anticipate from their natural resource assets. Our clients are better positioned to measure the physical results of their green initiatives, adapt their management plans and effectively communicate outcomes to their internal and external stakeholders. This work may stem from a prior engagement of our team or it may be our starting point, depending on your needs.

After working with large and mid-sized private and public clients making green claims associated with their mission, lines of revenue, and stewardship initiatives, we noticed four common issues that keep them from effectively syncing their desired outcomes with emerging policies and methods:

1. Limited understanding about the best available science for how ecosystem services are measured and valued.
2. Uncertainty about emerging and existing policy frameworks and what that means for their organization.
3. Unfamiliarity about how they can engage in and help inform the development of policy frameworks and the state of the science.
4. Lack of consideration for the long-term planning requirements of the valuation, monitoring, and evaluation of environmental assets.

It can be risky to move your enterprise into these new spaces without the requisite knowledge and it’s also risky to simply continue doing business as usual. We partner with you in every step of your process of aligning your environmental outcomes with your promises.

Achieving these outcomes from and for your environmental assets is not for the faint of heart. It requires your organization to move into new territory: injecting new learning, taking new targeted risks and shifting embedded cultural mindsets. It takes time to identify the right strategy, develop the know-how across your team and bring these concepts into reality for your operation. Taking these actions today sets you on the path to differentiate your enterprise from those that continue to operate in the status quo and enhances your long-term social license to operate.

Delivering on your desired environmental returns requires a unique combination of policy, science, and markets expertise. This is true regardless of the specific drivers such as: achieving regulatory compliance in complex situations, delivering on voluntary public commitments or achieving cost savings and generating new revenues from green initiatives. Internal efforts can be stymied, lag, and leave a bad taste without this specialized lens. This can result in dispirited team members, frustrated stakeholders and unmet objectives. Engaging targeted expertise with deep practical application, wherever you are in your process, is key to making faster, better progress on your vision, while simultaneously growing your in-house knowledge for the future.

Who Needs This Service?

Fortune 500 and mid-sized companies that are in resource dependent industries and public agencies that are entrusted to steward environmental resources and generate public returns. These are common elements that our clients share:

• Makes public claims and commitments relating to environmental stewardship and sustainability.
• Directly owns and manages significant and diverse environmental assets.
• Invests in environmental restoration (for compliance and/or reputational benefit purposes).
• Faces highly complex environmental and business conflict issues around land use, stakeholder and community relations, and regulatory compliance.
• Desires strategic advisement about sustainability and stewardship issues beyond their in-house expertise.

OUR APPROACH

SYNCING YOUR GREEN ACTIONS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR RETURNS

We begin by assessing your environmental commitments against your current approaches for achieving those outcomes. Our analysis will consider the relative alignment of these current approaches with policy frameworks and best available science to identify gaps, operational risks and missed opportunities. Building on this baseline assessment, here are some of the activities that may be included based on the customized engagement and agreed-upon deliverables:

• Recommend business-appropriate performance standards and targets for compliance, voluntary, and corporate sustainability programs.
• Inform adoption of next generation restoration science and practices to achieve the desired outcomes more effectively.
• Guide the selection of best practices for environmental asset performance monitoring and evaluation.
• Inform corporate and industry-wide strategy development to meet complex regulatory compliance requirements.
• Provide policy analysis of country-specific environmental regulatory frameworks and emerging voluntary guidelines.

Our work products will include agreed-upon deliverables and contain our advisements and recommended path forward. Oftentimes, initial engagements lead to a series of phased engagements where our team moves beyond initial strategic advisement to help your team implement the recommendations at an appropriate scale and pace. These phased engagements are highly attractive to ideal clients seeking to deliver consistent progress for their organization.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT

A PATH FOR CLEAR, TARGETED, AND MEANINGFUL ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRESS

This offering usually culminates in the development of customized advisory and implementation services driving new initiatives spanning across multiple divisions. The benefits to your organization include:

• Tailored strategies aligning your environmental initiatives and your public commitments.
• Business decision support for delivering measurable, meaningful environmental outcomes and social benefit.
• Improved performance outcomes from your existing stewardship programs.
• Enhanced ability to inform and influence the development of public policy and voluntary frameworks.
• Potential to generate new streams of savings and revenues from your portfolio of natural capital.

How To Get Started

We work collaboratively with our client liaison, their team members, and organization decision-makers to ideate, design, and deliver customized solutions. We typically progress through a phased process that includes discovery, visioning, setting expectations, project management and advancement. This approach offers the perfect blend of formal structure and flexible application.

Our approach for engaging with each client begins with a no-obligation initial consultation and a needs assessment. Based on the client’s situation and the unique nature of this work, we may progress through several framing sessions before formalizing an engagement. This ensures clarity of scoping and a shared understanding of risks, assumptions, variables and the timing of the work.

To get started on this process, please fill out the form below.