Energy & Climate Change

We are liv­ing in tur­bu­lent times, char­ac­ter­ised by polit­ic­al, cli­mate and health crises. The most acute of these – the COV­ID-19 pan­dem­ic – has clearly shown how in­ter­con­nec­ted our eco­nom­ies are: travel, com­merce and sup­ply chains world­wide have been im­pacted. No in­di­vidu­al or busi­ness has re­mained totally un­af­fected by it.As a glob­al or­gan­isa­tion, with a pres­ence in key busi­ness hubs around the world, we are wit­ness­ing the im­pact of the pan­dem­ic firsthand. Our teams in Asia, Europe, Africa and Lat­in Amer­ica are help­ing cli­ents deal with this un­pre­ced­en­ted situ­ation. Un­fold­ing in dif­fer­ent in­tens­it­ies in dif­fer­ent parts of the world at dif­fer­ent times, our teams are in the for­tu­nate po­s­i­tion of be­ing able to con­nect with and learn from each oth­er. This en­ables us to sup­port our cli­ents in a mean­ing­ful way, listen­ing to and un­der­stand­ing their con­cerns and provid­ing them with busi­ness-rel­ev­ant ad­vice that draws on in­sights from our ex­perts world­wide.In this crisis, we, as a so­ci­ety, are at a cross­roads. What is cer­tain is that for in­di­vidu­als and busi­nesses (ours in­cluded) there will be no ‘back to busi­ness as usu­al’. Things need to (and will) change. How we shape the ‘new nor­mal’ is up to us. In this An­nu­al Re­view, we look at some key de­vel­op­ments that are in­creas­ingly im­pact­ing busi­ness suc­cess. Com­pan­ies need to take these in­to con­sid­er­a­tion when ad­apt­ing their op­er­a­tions to the new busi­ness en­vir­on­ment.The months ahead will be chal­len­ging for us all. Busi­nesses will need to think stra­tegic­ally and po­s­i­tion them­selves for suc­cess in the new nor­mal. We at CMS see it as our task to guide our cli­ents through this chan­ging busi­ness land­scape.Mat­thi­as Licht­blau (Ex­ec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or) Pierre-Sé­bas­tien Thill (Chair­man) Duncan We­st­on (Ex­ec­ut­ive Part­ner) CMS Ex­ec­ut­ive Team

With more than 450 en­ergy and cli­mate change law­yers, in­clud­ing over 100 part­ners, the CMS En­ergy and Cli­mate Change prac­tice is one of the largest of its kind in the world. Led from its Lon­don centre of ex­cel­lence, the prac­tice works across 75 of­fices glob­ally.CMS teams now work in every corner of the sec­tor across the globe to help it meet the de­mands of cli­mate change, tech­no­lo­gic­al dis­rup­tion, urb­an­isa­tion in de­vel­op­ing eco­nom­ies, so­cial con­cerns and polit­ic­al agen­das.Be­low you will find some of our ex­per­i­ence across the globe. Please get in touch with our ex­perts in your jur­is­dic­tion.Please also see our Hot Top­ics for the En­ergy Trans­ition pub­lic­a­tion.

With more than 450 en­ergy and cli­mate change law­yers, in­clud­ing over 100 part­ners, the CMS En­ergy and Cli­mate Change prac­tice is one of the largest of its kind in the world. Led from its centres of ex­cel­lence such as Lon­don and Ab­er­deen, the prac­tice works across 75 of­fices glob­ally.Our early work in design­ing and im­ple­ment­ing mod­ern en­ergy mar­kets and sub­sequently guid­ing the sec­tor in the push to de­car­bon­isa­tion means CMS is not only a trans­ac­tion­al or pro­ject ad­viser to the sec­tor, but uniquely placed to help shape its present and fu­ture. We can help by giv­ing you our ad­vice and com­pre­hens­ive know­ledge on the top­ics lis­ted be­low.Please also see our CMS En­ergy Glob­al Ex­per­i­ence pub­lic­a­tion.

When we first draf­ted this fore­word, it said that al­though our fo­cus in this re­port is on per­son­al de­vel­op­ment for GCs, the world in which a GC works does make a dif­fer­ence to their role. Re­cent events have con­firmed that in a way we could nev­er have ima­gined.As we sur­veyed and in­ter­viewed GCs across Lat­in Amer­ica, no-one had heard of Cov­id-19. But now we are pub­lish­ing this re­port in what seems like a dif­fer­ent world from the one where we gathered our data.Clearly, we have to ask: is it still rel­ev­ant? The coronavir­us has brought not only count­less hu­man tra­gedies but also world­wide so­cial, fin­an­cial and com­mer­cial dis­rup­tion. Are our find­ings about the in-house pro­fes­sion still val­id in such a chal­len­ging and chan­ging en­vir­on­ment?We be­lieve they are. Our firm began its pro­gramme of GC re­ports dur­ing the glob­al fin­an­cial crisis. Such crises ac­cel­er­ate and change the way we view things. The glob­al fin­an­cial crisis boos­ted the status and value of many GCs, help­ing them achieve the am­bi­tions we dis­cussed. By help­ing their busi­nesses nav­ig­ate troubled times, with new re­quire­ments in areas such as com­pli­ance, they be­came more in­flu­en­tial.In the present crisis we will see oth­er GCs ex­per­i­ence a sim­il­ar change, as their com­pan­ies fo­cus on sur­viv­al, risk and sus­tain­ab­il­ity in the ‘new nor­mal’. Our re­search shows that Lat­in Amer­ic­an GCs are ready to seize such op­por­tun­it­ies, to prove their worth and to grow and de­vel­op their roles.In some re­spects, this re­port of­fers a snap­shot of life be­fore Cov­id-19. But in oth­er ways it’s a vis­ion for the fu­ture. The dir­ec­tion of travel for GCs – to­wards be­com­ing genu­inely stra­tegic busi­ness coun­sel – re­mains the same, even if some de­tails change. If the crisis ac­cel­er­ates pre-ex­ist­ing trends, they will be trends that GCs had already re­cog­nised.We be­lieve this is the first study of its kind in Lat­in Amer­ica.We hope that you will find it use­ful and thought­pro­vok­ing, even – or per­haps even more – in these dif­fi­cult times.We would also like to thank the many con­trib­ut­ors across CMS for their sup­port with pre­par­ing this re­port. It is not pos­sible to men­tion all of those who have made sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tions by name.However, we would like to give par­tic­u­lar thanks to Adam Beach, Madalena Hou­li­han, Jonath­an Fenton, Cath­er­ine Mc­Gregor and Mary Hoover, for their con­sid­er­able ef­forts in as­sist­ing us.

The first CMS Gen­er­al Coun­sel re­port in the Lat­in Amer­ica re­gion ex­plores the de­vel­op­ment of the GC role and how the world in which GCs work im­pacts them