Update from the Sussex Environment Team (#1)

Just under a month ago, the Environment team at Sussex was busy working with all levels of government on a number of important issues for our clients: climate change, carbon pricing and finance, single-use plastics, recycling and resource recovery, to name a few. It is an exciting time to be working in the sustainability space, as businesses and governments prioritize the future of our environment in short- and long-term plans, and see how these measures can grow the economy in a responsible way.

We all know what happened next, as everyone – globally – is still very much trying to adapt to an extraordinarily different reality, which seemingly shifts by the day. It would be easy to say that those issues we were working on a month ago now seem far less important. We’ve seen this happen during past economic and societal downturns. Environmental protection becomes a distant priority, a distraction, as businesses and communities attempt to rebuild as quickly as possible.

However, this time feels different. Instead, we see policies and economic stimulus that promote the low-carbon economy and sound environmental protection being discussed as an integral part of the solution, in order to create jobs and potentially safeguard future capital investments from the impacts of climate change.

There are already significant learnings to be had from how business and government address a significant disruption to the economy and society. Those lessons will no doubt be incorporated in future government policies to encourage adoption of clean low-carbon solutions, and within a business’ own development of environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.

To that end, our team will continue to help you address the critical challenges that the global pandemic has created while keeping a close eye on the horizon ahead of us, and providing you with the tools and assistance necessary to rebuild and grow once again in a world where climate change and sustainability remain top-of-mind.

Please contact our team at any time. In the meantime, please take a look at the recent article penned by Devin McCarthy and Shawn McCarthy on the iPolitics website; you can find it here.  We will also be posting links to our favourite environmentally-focused articles every week on the Sussex website.

Keep safe and healthy.

‍

Robyn Gray – Vice President, Environment
rgray@sussex-strategy.com

Christina Marciano – Senior Associate, Environment
cmarciano@sussex-strategy.com

Devin McCarthy – Vice President, Federal
dmccarthy@sussex-strategy.com

Roberto Chavez – Associate, Federal
rchavez@sussex-strategy.com