Alistair Young

Alistair joined Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr as a Senior Associate in 2022 and was appointed as a director in 2023.

Alistair is an admitted Attorney who completed his tertiary education at the University of Cape Town where he obtained a BA degree specialising in environmental science, a LLB degree, and a Master’s degree focusing on International and South African Environmental Law. Alistair completed his articles through a general practice firm of Attorneys based in Cape Town whereafter he specialised in the practice of Environmental Law, with a particular focus on drafting and presenting the environmental and health and safety findings of due diligence investigations for lenders and investors regarding wind and solar (concentrated and photovoltaic) projects associated with the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme as well as coal independent power producer projects and the funding of new mine projects. The focus of these due diligence investigations is on identifying the environmental and health and safety legal risks associated with such projects including the environmental licensing, permitting and authorisation requirements and possible objections and appeals by interested and affected parties.

• Alistair has developed and presented online renewable energy workshops that focus on the environmental authorisation, licensing and permit requirements of renewable energy projects and the numerous environmental legal complications that could arise during the project development and operational phases.

• Alistair also has broad experience regarding the appeal processes linked to the various Specific Environmental Management Acts, the evaluation of the suitability of EIA reports, compiling written responses to section 31L legal compliance notices and drafting of legal opinions relating to inter alia the mining, waste, water use and hazardous substances sectors. 

• Drafting and presenting the environmental findings of due diligence investigations for lenders and investors regarding wind and solar (concentrated and photovoltaic) projects associated with the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme as well as coal independent power producer projects and the funding of new mine projects.

• He has also conducted safety, health and environmental legal compliance and environmental authorisation evaluations (“audits”) of numerous industrial, mining and astronomy operations throughout South Africa. He has also developed operation specific and user-friendly pro-forma environmental, health and safety and mine health and safety audit questionnaires for various sectors including mining and retail.

• Alistair represents various mining houses in protecting their first-in-time rights to mine on land against applications for competing mineral rights to mine for the same mineral on the same land. In representing these mining houses, Alistair has been at the forefront of providing strategic legal advice in relation to opposing these competing mineral rights applications and which advice has resulted in Alistair drafting objections, internal appeals and judicial review applications and presenting client's objections at Regional Mining Development and Environmental Committee hearings.

• Strategic environmental advice was provided to Rainbow Rare Earths Limited in relation to the environmental permitting and rehabilitation obligations associated with the pioneering project to be located in Phalaborwa for the recovery and separation of rare earth elements from phosphogypsum stacks, a waste product from phosphoric acid production. When the project does come online, it will be one of very few rare earth recovery projects in Africa and has garnered international attention due to the global high-demand for rare-earth minerals.

• Alistair has assisted numerous renewable energy project developers as borrower's legal counsel which requires significant insight into the environmental permitting requirements associated with renewable energy projects. The guidance provided to developers is key to ensuring that the environmental permits for the projects are secured and risk free and which ultimately provides the necessary assurances to lenders to release the required funds for the development of the projects. Alistair is also currently involved in a matter where the required environmental permitting guidance is being provided to the lenders who will finance the renewable energy project.

• Given the lack of available electricity transmission capacity in the key provinces of the Eastern, Western and Northern Capes of South Africa, Alistair has been involved in numerous risk assessments on behalf of clients to determine the viability of certain renewable energy projects from a grid connection and electricity transmission perspective.

• Alistair formed part of a team of multi-disciplined attorneys providing strategic legal advice to a consortium of companies regarding the submission of their combined bid to be appointed in a public private partnership with a metropolitan municipality to decommission four existing municipal wastewater treatment works and the replacement of such facilities with two new wastewater treatment facilities.

• Preliminary environmental regulatory legal advice has been provided to a South African based entity with significant backing from a wide range of German organisations to establish a green methanol corridor between Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal and which project will produce green methanol making use of key inputs being green energy (from renewables) as well as water and CO² extracted from the sludge procured from municipal wastewater treatment facilities.

• Advising and assisting a junior gold mining company with formulating responses to directives issued by the Department of Water and Sanitation in terms of section 53 of the National Water Act.

• Formulating and developing environmental law course content and thereafter presenting the training sessions for clients in the mining and industrial sectors. The training courses covered a range of environmental law issues including water, waste, air quality, EIA, mining, director liability and biodiversity.

• Assisting developers of renewable energy projects with the drafting of answering affidavits to judicial review applications initiated by interested and affected parties against the administrative decisions to grant environmental authorisations for renewable energy facilities.

• Alistair has assisted various clients operating in different sectors with strategic environmental legal advice relating to environmental legal compliance in scenarios where compliance action has been threatened or initiated.

• Providing property developers with environmental legal advice regarding the environmental permitting requirements associated with both large multi-use property developments and private high-value property developments.

• Legal assessments have been undertaken by Alistair in relation to identifying environmental legal risks associated with the potential investment by clients in businesses or the development of renewable energy projects in various African countries including, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Mauritius, Eswatini, Ghana and Morocco.

• Alistair formed an integral part of the CDH legal team which advised Kielder, the Switzerland-based global leader in sustainable agriculture, in connection with its acquisition of the Willow Creek Olive Estate, whose business encompasses olive, grape and cherry farming operations. The environmental aspects of the day-to-day operations of the Willow Creek Olive Estate were key to the deal and part of the instruction focused on the intricate historical and current water rights associated with the property, some of which date back as far as 1912 and which water rights are critical to sustaining existing and planned future farming operations.