Energy consultancy GLJ Ltd. is reshaping its sustainability practice to help energy and resources companies navigate growing regulatory, geopolitical and market uncertainty, with a greater focus on strategy, risk management and asset performance.

The Calgary-based company, founded in 1972, has operated a sustainability practice for approximately three years primarily for environmental, social and governance reporting and readiness assessments for businesses.

But the energy sector, and sustainability by extension, is undergoing an upheaval with an upending of trade policies, geopolitical shifts, and new regulations that demand an examination of “the external risks that could potentially impact a project, not just the project design and the technical features,” Kelley Rutledge, the manager of GLJ's strategy and sustainability advisory, said in an interview with Sustainable Biz Canada.

Thus, GLJ refocused the practice to emphasize advisory services and strategy that can help navigate around risks in the sector such as Bill C-59, which is designed to clamp down on greenwashing.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations with our clients about how can we help them manage risk, be it social risk, governance risk,” Greg Owen, GLJ’s senior vice-president of new ventures, said during the same interview. “So that’s why we rebranded.”

A private firm owned by its employees, GLJ operates around the world serving energy companies, regulatory agencies and investors.

Clients from the oil and gas, mining, geothermal energy, lithium, and carbon capture and storage sectors are among its most common, Owen said. Its services include estimating petroleum and natural gas reservoirs, conducting feasibility studies for the lithium industry and assessing the viability of carbon capture projects.

GLJ’s sustainability advisory

Strategic market development is a key component of GLJ’s refreshed strategy and sustainability advisory services. The company helps clients develop readiness plans and risk-mitigation strategies by mapping out regulatory, climate, market and stakeholder expectations. The goal, Rutledge said, is to help clients navigate uncertainty as they seek to increase market share or expand into new markets.

GLJ also offers premium product positioning, which involves incorporating sustainability into a client’s products or assets to improve pricing or strengthen their positioning ahead of an acquisition, Rutledge said. GLJ has seen Canadian companies with validated sustainability processes backed by third-party audits earn a premium for their products or services in the international market, Owen said.

Sustainable asset performance is another component of the offering. GLJ examines where a client’s assets stand and how the portfolio can be improved to “reduce that risk and create long-term resiliency,” Rutledge said. The work focuses on identifying and managing “regulatory, climate-related and operational risks that affect compliance, performance, and long-term asset value.”

As an example of GLJ’s risk-management work, the company worked with a thermal oil producer to evaluate alternative and emerging technologies with decarbonization potential. The assessment considered technology readiness, implementation risks and costs, resulting in a roadmap that prioritized the technologies with the greatest potential impact.

GLJ expects its strategy and sustainability advisory services to serve clients across the oil and gas, utilities, data centre, hydrogen and ammonia sectors, as well as investors and lenders.

The reworking of GLJ's sustainability advisory directs its team to work with clients they are highly engaged with, Owen said, moving them to tackle “the really meaty, strategic problem for a client” which “is actually exciting to solve.” The new three focus areas “tie really well with the rest of the company,” he added.