Carbon and Nature Repair
Carbon projects lawyer
Fixed fee counsel for landholders, project developers, aggregators, investors and credit buyers in Australia's carbon and biodiversity markets. Registration strategy, land tenure, consents and the contracts that carry the value. One team, one sequence.
An ACCU project is a legal structure before it is an environmental one. The projects that reach first credit cleanly are the ones whose tenure, consents and contracts were resolved before registration, not discovered after it.
Book a consultation or call (07) 3519 5616.
The problem we solve
A carbon project fails on paper long before it fails on the land. The ACCU scheme is administered by the Clean Energy Regulator, and a project must be registered, run under an approved method and satisfy land tenure and consent requirements that can include native title considerations. Each of those is a legal question, each interacts with the others and a weakness in any one of them can surface years into the crediting period, when the capital is spent and the credits are contracted.
The market is also widening. The Nature Repair Act 2023 (Cth) established a national voluntary biodiversity market, and landholders are now being approached with paperwork that stacks carbon, biodiversity and land use rights on the same country. What you sign first shapes what you can do with everything that follows. That sequencing problem is exactly what we solve.
Who we act for
Landholders and agribusinesses
Approached by a developer with a carbon agreement you did not draft. That document allocates land use rights, project control, credit entitlements and exit terms for decades, and it is not written in your favour. Advice before signing costs a fraction of what the first draft gives away.
Project developers and aggregators
Building portfolios where the value rests on registration, tenure and consent positions holding up across many properties at once. One weak consent chain in the portfolio is a diligence finding waiting to happen.
Investors and offtakers
Backing projects whose returns depend on credits that have not been issued yet. Diligence on a carbon project is a legal exercise across registration, tenure, consents and contracts, and it belongs at term sheet stage, not at closing.
Businesses buying credits at scale
Contracting for future delivery from projects you do not control. The offtake terms decide who carries the risk of a project that under delivers, and most templates in circulation answer that question against the buyer.
The Carbon Project Program
Three phases, each a fixed fee agreed before it starts. The sequence is the service.
Phase 1: Feasibility and structuring
Your land, structure and project concept assessed against the scheme's registration, method, tenure and consent requirements before you are committed. You get the map: what your project actually requires, where the consent risks sit, including native title considerations, and the failure modes specific to your country and your counterparties. Fixed fee.
Phase 2: Registration and contracts
We run the legal side of registration with the Clean Energy Regulator and the agreements around it. Landholder agreements, consents, project documents and the positions that protect your share of the value. Fixed fee, agreed after Phase 1.
Phase 3: Crediting and compliance
The obligations that run for the life of the project. Reporting arrangements, contract performance, disputes with counterparties and keeping the structure sound as the land, the parties or the market change. Fixed fee.
Why a law firm
Your feasibility analysis, structuring advice and consent strategy are protected by legal professional privilege, which matters when the frank conversation is about what your tenure position cannot yet support. Our advice carries the professional liability of a regulated profession. And your matter is run end to end by a senior lawyer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a lawyer to register an ACCU project?
The scheme is administered by the Clean Energy Regulator and registration is only one gate. The land tenure, consent and contract positions behind the registration are legal questions, and they are the ones that decide whether the project holds up over its crediting life. Phase 1 tells you where you actually stand before you commit.
A developer has offered me a carbon agreement over my land. Should I sign it?
Not before it is reviewed. That agreement allocates project control, credit entitlements, land use restrictions and exit rights for a very long time, and the first draft is written for the developer. What it costs you is not visible on its face, which is the point of getting advice first.
Does native title affect my project?
It can. The scheme's land tenure and consent requirements can include native title considerations, and whether they apply to your project depends on the land and the project type. It is a question to answer before registration, not after, and it is part of Phase 1.
What about the biodiversity market?
The Nature Repair Act 2023 (Cth) established a national voluntary biodiversity market. Whether your land can support a carbon project, a biodiversity project or both, and in what order, is a structuring question, because what you sign first constrains what follows.
Discuss your project
The cheapest time to fix a carbon project is before anything is signed and before the project is registered. Call (07) 3519 5616 or book a consultation.
Book a ConsultationThis page is general information, not legal advice. The regimes it describes are moving, so some dates and rules will change. Obtain advice tailored to your circumstances before acting. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.