Speaker Bio

Muller is an ESG and sustainability lawyer based in South Africa. His practice focuses on ESG risk and helping clients to identify ESG risks and turning the risks into ESG opportunities. ESG risk takes many forms and is caused by various regulatory obligations as well as stakeholder demands and expectations. I therefore assist clients in a great variety of matters including developing and implementing internal ESG frameworks, complying with sustainability reporting and disclosure requirements, staying on top of the ever-increasing universe of ESG-related obligations, satisfying specific ESG-related legal duties and stakeholder expectations, and resolving ESG-related disputes.

He also frequently advise governments and international organisations on how to incorporate ESG principles into domestic legal frameworks and international standards.

In addition to advising clients on the law, he represents them in negotiations, transactional work, judicial review proceedings, international arbitrations, and high-court litigation.

His  clients include multinational enterprises, governments, international organisations, local communities, and NGOs . The multinational enterprises include entities that are listed on several stock exchanges globally and which have operations in various jurisdictions throughout the EMEA region.

In addition to his legal practice, he a qualified environmental management inspector with the South African Department of Environmental Affairs, have practiced as an environmental assessment practitioner (EAP), and currently represent Africa on the International Bar Association’s SDG and ESG working group, the Net Zero Lawyers Alliance’s steering committee and the Green Hydrogen Organisation’s standard committee.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that he regularly participate in international conferences and lecture postgraduate students on matters related to ESG, green hydrogen, mining, and sustainable development.

For more information, please see his profile at https://www.herbertsmithfreehills.com/our-people/ernst-mulle