There is, says Garth Watson, a director of the Cape legal firm, Gunstons Attorneys, a pressing need for SA legal firms to be able to understand and advise on environmental law issues.

Many of the 'green' companies offering specialist advice and services (for example in the retro-fitting of buildings) are themselves often not fully compliant and, in fact, ignorant of much of South Africa's environmental legislation. 

Watson adds that the steadily increasing prosecutions of businesses for not complying with environmental laws have compelled companies to become more aware of these laws but, he said, many have shown a willingness to “go beyond statutory compliance” and adopt best practice management systems and the use of creative new technologies and systems to ‘green’ their companies.

Gunstons Attorneys is determined to be one of those generating new solutions to environmental challenges.  It has, therefore tied up a strategic partnership with an environmental legal compliance business, The Environmental Law Consultancy (The ELC), one of the oldest firms of its kind in South Africa.

The ELC now operates from offices in the same building as Gunstons’ offices in Steenberg Office Park, Tokai and will liaise with and draw closely on the expertise of all Gunstons’ departments, especially the commercial, environmental and property divisions.

Grant Gunston, Senior Director at Gunston Attorneys, said that the already-defined intention is to grow the ELC's business and this, he believes, should be relatively straightforward because "there is a huge need for informed and responsible advice on environmental matters generally as well as health and safety law".

Peter Flynn, ELC’sBusiness and Systems Manager, said that the backing of Gunstons Attorneys would enable the ELC to provide new services and technology and to widen the range of products that they offer.

“Clients,” he said, “will have to have competent legal compliance assistance across all areas of their business operations, covering the full spectrum of South African legislation.  This will be especially necessary as new legislation begins to have significant impacts across traditional company verticals.”

The ELC, said Flynn, has been in existence for 20 years.  It focused on environmental legal compliance in its early years before expanding into occupational health and safety and, more recently, other areas.

"Our goal has always been to assist any company or organisation whose activities impact on the natural environment.  We try to see that they do so in a legally approved, responsible and sustainable manner."

ELC’s clients, he said, have tended to be mines and manufacturing entities such as processing, packaging, canning and bottling plants as well as property developers.  Most already have “massive” operations in South Africa and are continuing to expand and/or to upgrade. 

“No company is too small for us to help.  We have shown that we can be useful to entities of all sizes.”

The ELC's clients, added Flynn, tend to have two motives for partnering up with them.

"The first is a genuine desire to avoid harming the planet and/or their work place or community.  The second is the growing realisation that the penalties for non-compliance imposed by the state can be onerous in the extreme:  they often run into many millions of rands.  For example, a Witbank based materials producer was recently fined R3 million for contravening the National Environmental Air Quality Act even though in virtually every other way the company was already legally compliant." 

“Many companies are well down the road of sustainability”, he said.

Trudie Broekmann, Gunstons Attorneys Commercial Law Director, said that there is a growing need for a 'one-stop' legal service to ensure compliance not only with Environmental, Safety and Health matters but also with the growing body of other law affecting business operations such as the Companies Act, the Competition Act and the Consumer Protection Act, where, she said, the penalties for non-compliance can also be very high.