IMBEWU Team

Catherine Warburton: Managing Director

Catherine Warburton BA LLB

Specialities: EIA & Development Planning, Environmental Authorisation Processes, Air Quality, Water & Waste, Mining & Industrial Compliance, Climate Change, Biodiversity & Protected Areas

Catherine Warburton practised as an attorney, concentrating on environmental legal issues for two and a half years before joining the Anglo American Group as an environmental legal advisor until the end of 2000. There after she established IMBEWU Sustainability Legal Specialists (Pty) Ltd and Warburton Attorneys. She has acted as the Managing Director of IMBEWU and the Managing Partner of Warburton Attorneys for twelve years. (See www.imbewu.co.za and www.warburtons.co.za.) In August 2012, Warburton Attorneys welcomed a new partner and became Warburton Gunn Attorneys.

Catherine has more than fifteen years of practical experience in the relatively new field of sustainability law in South Africa. Her experience has been mainly developed across a broad spectrum of large industrial and mining concerns in a number of countries. She has also assisted NGO groups and government with legal advice and has provided input into governmental policy development in South Africa. Catherine has been involved in the environmental legal aspects of the Gautrain Project as specialist advisor since 2002 and has advised on a number of development projects and climate and energy related projects.

She completed a two and a half year international sustainable development training programme in 2001 entitled LEAD i.e. Leadership for the Environment and Development. In 2012 Catherine completed a Sustainability Reporting Course, certified by the Global Reporting Initiative. Catherine is currently reading for a Masters in Law and the title of her dissertation is, "Down the track of the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link Project: Evaluating regulatory requirements for key environmental authorisations applicable to Public Private Partnership linear infrastructure development projects in South Africa."

Catherine has developed specific expertise in the area of climate change. She has attended UNFCCC meetings as a South African business representative and as an Inter-Governmental representative and has worked on the development of CDM projects in South Africa. She has presented papers and training courses on a wide range of sustainability legal issues in South Africa and was a team member of the BASIC International Climate Change Capacity Building Project.

From 2007 - 2013 the Practical Law Company in London has ranked Catherine as a "highly recommended" attorney in the field of environmental law in South Africa. Catherine also serves as the Chairperson of the Law Society of South Africa's Committee for Environmental Law.

View detailed Curriculum Vitae