At Naturally Compliant, we work with a diverse range of organisations, offering various services such as client environmental representative, environmental management, independent due diligence, and environmental support to both principal and subcontractors. Our goal is always to promote environmental improvement during construction. This breadth of experience allows us to understand the unique drivers of each party involved.
The recently published IEMA EIA Guidelines, "Implementing the Mitigation Hierarchy from Concept to Construction," highlighted some of these differences. Despite the varying perspectives, each stakeholder has clear responsibilities to ensure the development is built in compliance with environmental regulations.
Interested party | Responsibility |
Regulators (LPA’s, EA, SEPA etc) | Responsible for ensuring the Planning Condition or relevant legal requirements are complied with through utilisation of enforcement mechanisms |
Developer | Responsible for ensuring compliance with the relevant legal requirements and noting the planning permission is in their name. This is often achieved through contractual requirements placed on the Contractors. |
Principal contractor | Often responsible for delivering compliance with the planning condition and other legal obligations. |
In this article, we outline how we support our Developer clients in meeting their environmental obligations, from the tendering process through to construction. While our services can be engaged at any stage, we focus on ensuring environmental compliance throughout the project lifecycle.
The Environmental representative at the tendering phase
Much like Health and Safety requirements under CDM regulations, Developers are responsible for ensuring that enough resources and time are allocated to deliver a project in compliance with environmental standards. This involves clearly communicating project requirements in tender documents and assessing bids to ensure they account for adequate environmental provisions. Any tender that fails to outline sufficient resources or time should be flagged and appropriately evaluated.
Naturally Compliant assists by providing the necessary expertise to ensure tender documentation accurately reflects environmental requirements. We also review the tender responses to confirm whether bidders have accounted for the time and resources needed to meet environmental obligations.
The Environmental representative during the construction phase
Many developers defer environmental responsibilities to their contractors, but the ultimate responsibility remains with the Developer—especially since planning consents are in their name. Furthermore, environmental harm can damage a developer’s reputation, and the developer could face the consequences of non-compliance, both legally and reputationally. The developer may also have internal governance processes to monitor contract performance, the developers are paying contractors to deliver the project in a specific way.
During the construction phase, we provide environmental management and due diligence services. This involves offering advice and identifying instances where the contractor may not be meeting, or is exceeding, contractual expectations.
One of our most valuable services is conducting reviews of a project's environmental performance, which then feeds into a "lessons learned" process. This could involve identifying ineffective contractual clauses or evaluating which mitigation strategies worked well or failed. Our broad experience across multiple projects enables us to deliver meaningful insights and improvements.
Ultimately, it’s about managing risk—both to the environment and to the project.
If you’d like to know more about how Naturally Compliant can support your next project, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.