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Australia.

Offering commercial legal advice to NFPs and social enterprises. 

In 2018, Norton Rose Fulbright provided pro bono advice to an environmental organisation on the introduction of a scheme designed to improve water quality and land management practices and ultimately, reduce the amount of pollution caused by nutrient, pesticide and sediment entering the Great Barrier Reef catchment.

The scheme helps to build the resilience of the Reef to assist it to cope with climate change. Under the proposed scheme, land managers would be able to undertake projects that incorporate improved water and land management practices and generate a tradeable unit of pollutant reduction (a quantifiable volume of nutrient, pesticide or sediment).

Norton Rose Fulbright’s advice covered:

  • the initial considerations associated with secretariat and governance requirements for the reef credit scheme, including identification requirements in respect of the credits 
  • an assessment as to whether the reef credits would comprise financial products, and general AFS licensing implications arising from the scheme 
  • the tax implications arising from the scheme, with a focus on Australian Taxation Office registration requirements and goods and services tax treatment 
  • counter-terrorism and anti-money laundering requirements arising from implementation of the scheme.