Compliance and Assurance

Compliance and Assurance

AREA aims to help environmental custodians and decision makers navigate the expanding regulatory framework; and to provide appropriate, evidence-based, and compelling advice to achieve effective and sustainable outcomes.

AREA is highly experienced in managing assurance and compliance issues, including highly contentious cases. Our staff have received specialist training in:

  • environmental incident investigations (Certificate IV in Government Investigations).
  • environmental management system auditing (ISO14001: environmental management systems).
  • expert witness training (tailored to the NSW Land and Environment Court).


The adversarial nature of the regulatory system can cause undue anxiety and stress for the regulated community. This can result in sub optimal outcomes for scientific experts their clients, and the environment.

We pride ourselves on our demonstrated experience offering impartial and accurate conservation advice to environmental custodians including landowners, land managers, decision makers, and regulators. 


We offer services to help our clients with:

  • pro-active compliance with environmental and heritage regulations.
  • compliance response – supporting investigations into non-compliance.
  • agreed outcomes – innovative solutions to remedy non-compliances that satisfy the regulator and allow business to resume.

Proactive Compliance

Service Description
Independent audit The purpose of an Independent Audit is to obtain an independent and objective assessment of the environmental performance and compliance status of a project.
Environmental management plans Preparing, reviewing, and varying environmental management plans to achieve effective and appropriate outcomes.
Adaptive Management Strategies Preparing, reviewing, and varying adaptive management strategies to deal with risk and uncertainty when managing land for appropriate environmental outcomes.
Regulatory risk assessment Analysis of regulatory risk so that resources can be deployed to the areas of greatest need.
Peer review and advice Improving assessment and recommendation quality to ensure appropriate outcomes and to demonstrate compliance with government policy and regulation.
Compliance reporting & Post Approval Requirements As part of the Environmental Impact Assessment Improvement Project, the Department of Planning and Environment has prepared Post Approval Requirements (PAR) documents that will apply to State significant projects where required.

Compliance Response

Service Description
Internal investigations Identify individual sources of non-compliance and systemic issues; and provide evidence-based advice on appropriate responses.
Independent assessment Independent assessment of environmental harm and working with clients and regulators to determine appropriate environmental outcomes.
Agreed outcomes Working with clients to develop appropriate plans to respond to non-compliances that may include voluntary remediation or enforceable undertakings.
Expert witness Providing independent expert testimony in prosecution / litigation cases.

Many environmental consultancies are focussed on pre-approval environmental impact assessment and acquire post-approval assurance and compliance issues on the back of this work. These consultancies are not specialised in managing these issues, particularly resolving contentious and / or unintended environmental impacts.


Since 2016, AREA has provided expert witness services, many of which achieve a negotiated outcome before being heard in the Land and Environment Court.

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