IMBEWU Services

Most of the professional services offered by IMBEWU can also be provided in French. IMBEWU provides technical French/English translation services in its field of expertise. For more information about the services which can be offered in French, please directly contact Marie Parramon (marie@imbewu.co.za).

La plupart des services offerts par IMBEWU peuvent être rendu en Français ou en Anglais. IMBEWU offre aussi un service de traduction spécialisée (français/anglais) dans son domaine d’expertise. Pour plus de renseignements sur les services offerts en français, nous vous prions de contacter directement Marie Parramon (marie@imbewu.co.za).

Development planning and EIA Authorisation Advice

IMBEWU has advised a number of large industrial, developmental, governmental and mining organisations on EIA related legal issues.

IMBEWU has been involved in the EIAs for large projects such as the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link EIA and other linear projects for transmission lines, pipelines and other transportation projects, such as the Bus Rapid Transit System implemented by the Johannesburg Development Agency. IMBEWU provides comprehensive and practically focussed advice to Environmental Assessment Practitioners (EAPs) as well as to development applicants and interested and affected parties.

We provide process related and strategic level advice on EIA processes and on applicable "listed activities" that trigger the EIA requirement. We conduct environmental legal reviews of various EIA documents in order to identify and highlight key concerns regarding the draft EIA documents arising from the requirements of the NEMA EIA requirements and the NEMA EIA Regulations or generally from an environmental legal process perspective.

On many EIAs we produce a review of the environmental legal requirements applicable to the proposed activity itself and/or the other environmental authorisations that will be required for the project.

IMBEWU Policy and Research Specialists

In March 2010, responding to an evolution in the market and specific requests from clients, IMBEWU launched a new business unit specialised in sustainability policy and research. The new unit is called IMBEWU Policy and Research Specialists. This new unit is mainly aimed at working on projects involving legal research and/or policy development and assessment related to sustainable development.

Since 2010 the beginning of all the work conducted by IMBEWU for the Global Climate Network (GCN) has been conducted by the new unit. IMBEWU Policy and Research Specialists has expanded significantly since then, working on policy and research projects funded by international donors and international public entities such as the World Bank, foreign governments and foreign embassies. IMBEWU Policy and Research Specialists strives to provide the following services, at the national, regional and international levels:

Participating in the process of formulating, implementing and evaluating policy and law.
Critical appraisal of institutional and governance framework.
Legal appraisal of specific policy and regulatory instruments.
Dissemination of research results to government, the research community and the wider public.
Creating and consolidating network with organisations in South Africa, in the Southern African region and internationally
Conducting training courses for policy-makers, implementers and the business community.

IMBEWU Policy and Research Specialists consults across a wide range of topics relating to sustainability law. We consult both to the public and the private sectors, placing particular focus on developing and/or assessing policies, legal frameworks and regulatory instruments to assist in the development and improvement of progressive and effective policies, laws and practices pertaining to sustainable development. The main legal focus areas in which IMBEWU Policy and Research Specialists conducts work include:

Sustainability law and policy.
Climate change law and policy.
Marine and coastal law and policy.
Integrated water resource management and law.
Relationship between planning and environmental law.
Carbon and capture storage policy and legal framework.
The international carbon market.
Renewable energy related regulatory tools.
Energy law, including electricity generation.

We work closely with think tanks, research institutes, academics, NGOs and government departments to ensure that our research projects contribute to existing research efforts. We also have a wide national and international network which assist us for strategic direction and provide inputs in our research. IMBEWU Policy and Research Specialists is also well suited to work in a multi-disciplinary team. For further information about IMBEWU Policy and Research Specialists please contact: (marie@imbewu.co.za)