Environmental Law and the Construction Industry

IECA Aust. members are able to view the recording of this webinar once they are logged into the website.

Environmental legislation places complex environmental liabilities and responsibilities onto any person or company operating in the construction industry. Very few supervisory, engineering or environmental staff involved in construction have a full understanding of their roles and responsibilities under the legislation.

To help change this, IECA (www.austieca.com.au) has engaged Kirstie Richards a partner from K&L Gates to run an engaging, informative and eye-opening webinar.

The webinar will take you through the response to a hypothetical environmental incident and explore the legal environmental risk issues which arise as the incident unfolds along with a mock regulator interview and a Q&A session at the end.

The session will explore the following matters:

• Duties to notify regulators
• Potential liabilities/costs, including for corporates, directors and managers
• Roles and powers of environmental regulators and local government in incident response
• Incident reporting and document management
• A typical regulatory investigation
• Potential regulatory outcomes
• Example prosecutions and the environmental, social and economic costs for an organisation.
• Common mistakes made by construction personnel when dealing with environmental incidents.
• How to manage a potential incident – what to say, do and write, and what to avoid.
• How to establish legal privilege and avoid self-incrimination during a regulator investigation.

This webinar is an absolute must-attend for anyone involved in overseeing construction projects, and is relevant to contractors, gas companies, miners, government agencies, consultants and engineers – anyone engaged in construction, no matter how big or small the project.

Attendees should include:

• Site supervisors
• Site engineers
• Project Managers
• Construction Managers
• Environment team
• Community team

Meet the presenter – Kirstie Richards

Kirstie Richards is an environmental and planning lawyer who focuses on large scale projects in the energy, renewables, oil and gas, mining and infrastructure sectors. She has more than 15 years' experience advising on planning, environmental and regulatory approvals, pollution and contamination, environmental legal risk management and allocation, crisis management (including regulatory investigations, enforcement and prosecutions) and land access (including compensation, mining and petroleum access and neighbour agreements) and environmental and planning litigation.