Professional Services

As the competition grows for scarce natural and economic resources, public agencies and other parties are increasingly turning to face-to-face negotiation and other alternative dispute resolution strategies to resolve their differences. We apply these tools to help parties make tough decisions on setting policies, crafting regulations, and making site-specific decisions. Our expertise and experience spans the full spectrum of environmental, land use, and natural resource issues. Our project-level engagements include include water supply, flood control, hydroelectric plant licensing, toxic waste remediation, and transit corridor alignment. Other projects have addressed forestry practices, rare and endangered species protection, protection restoration of wetlands in urbanizing settings, highways and transit corridor alignment , and establishment of parks. Still other projects involve the siting and associated mitigation of coastal ports for residential and commercial uses. Projects focussing on policy development include water use efficiency, crafting large-scale ecosystem restoration plans, growth management, ranking of environmental and economic risk factors and species recovery, and ranking of research priorities to examine social impacts of energy development. Descriptions of CONCUR's services are listed below.

CONCUR Fact Sheets For Colleagues and Prospective Clients:

CONCUR has developed downloadable Fact Sheet PDFs that describe our firm and services, and these are linked below. The Fact Sheets summarize the key elements of our services and present examples from selected cases. They present a useful first-level description of our work. We customize these materials for specific SOQ and RFP submittals. We would welcome a chance to discuss the needs of specific projects with you. Please do not circulate or distribute these Fact Sheets without first contacting CONCUR.

CONCUR Firm Overview

The CONCUR Team

Agreement-Focused Facilitation and Mediation

Joint Fact-Finding

Strategic Planning

Situation/Conflict Assessment

Training Services

International Work

One PDF with all eight CONCUR Fact Sheets

 

CONCUR offers the following professional services in the field of Environmental Conflict Resolution:

CONCUR has been hired by a range of clients to design and manage complex public policy dialogues. We work as facilitators, mediators and policy analysts while crafting each individual collaborative process to maximize the potential for reaching a binding agreement.

 

Agreement-Focused Facilitation and Mediation

CONCUR provides skilled mediation and facilitation services to help interested parties resolve contentious environmental disputes and produce lasting agreements. Representatives of government, business, environmental and community organizations are often involved in these dialogues, which can be effective ways to supplement traditional administrative, legislative and judicial procedures. These traditional forums often limit cooperation between competing groups, undercut creativity and lead to unstable political outcomes.

Components of these services can include the following:

  • Stakeholder Analysis, to understand the often complex interests and positions of competing groups;
  • Situation/Conflict Assessments, to determine whether and under what conditions a dispute would benefit from facilitation or mediation;
  • Creation of Procedural Frameworks, such as ground rules and work programs;
  • Preparation of individual meeting agendas and meeting packets;
  • Assistance with organization and clear presentation of technical and scientific information;
  • Assistance to negotiating parties in preparation of written agreements to implement negotiated settlements; and
  • Assistance with negotiating parties in presenting results of negotiations to governing boards and commissions.

For a list of our Facilitation and Mediation Projects, please click here.

To view elements of our approach to mediation and facilitation, please visit About CONCUR.

Agreement-Focused Facilitation and Mediation Fact Sheet (PDF)

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Joint Fact-Finding

Resolving a complex public policy dispute requires that interested parties share an understanding of the technical dimensions of the problem they face. Whether the challenge is reducing pollution of the marine environment or cleaning up a toxic waste site, the most accurate scientific information must be collected and utilized. When different interest groups and agencies disagree about the merits of a proposed policy or project, they often use their technical reports and evidence to promote their own view. We help parties avoid the pitfalls of "advocacy science", or "battle of the experts", so common in the courtroom and administrative hearings.

CONCUR is recognized nationally and internationally for its skill in compiling and pooling relevant information and to "translate" it into a form that can be used by decision-makers and others to create the foundation for broad-based consensus. We call this approach joint fact-finding.

Joint fact-finding has several elements. First, rather than withholding information for strategic advantage, the interested parties pool relevant information. Second, joint fact-finding involves face-to-face dialogue between technical experts, decision-makers, and other key stakeholders. Usually, a nonpartisan facilitator or mediator assists in orchestrating this dialogue. Third, this process places considerable emphasis on "translating" technical information--text, graphics, videos, web-based information and oral presentations--into a form that is accessible to all participants in the dialogue. Another significant aspect of the process is that while joint fact-finding is geared to building consensus, it tries to clearly "map" areas of scientific agreement and to narrow areas of disagreement and uncertainty. Often we work with participants to produce a single negotiating text to record the results of the joint fact-finding process. The concept of a single text simply means that participants in negotiation use a single document to focus discussion, rather than arguing over competing versions of facts and recommendations. Usually this document is revised through several working drafts and produces a tangible record that brings the joint fact-finding effort to closure.

Joint Fact-Finding results in:

  • Face-to-face collaboration between technical experts, decision makers and key stakeholders;
  • Translation of technical information so lay decision makers can understand it;
  • "Mapping" areas of scientific agreement to increase technical certainty;
  • Savings of time and money by avoiding unnecessary duplication of information;
  • Agreements between parties with no prior track record of agreement.

Below are a links to few of CONCUR projects for which we have provided Joint Fact-Finding Services:

To order a reprint of our recent publication "Refining and Testing Joint Fact-Finding for Environmental Dispute Resolution: Ten Years of Success" (Mediation Quarterly, Vol. 18 (4) 2001), please visit our Publications page.

Joint Fact-Finding Fact Sheet (PDF)

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Situation / Conflict Assessment

Often public agencies and private parties face a potential dispute and need to size up situation and determine whether a consensual process of dispute resolution looks promising. A Situation or Conflict Assessment can be defined as "an objective evaluation of the situation conducted by a neutral expert based on confidential interviews with stakeholders to recommend whether a consensus-based process is likely to be fruitful and, if so, how it should be structured and prepared."

The key elements of a Situation Assessment:

  • Neutral, objective evaluation. The Conflict Assessment looks at all perspectives from a viewpoint that is not biased towards any particular outcome.
  • Confidentiality. Conflict Assessment findings and recommendations are based on data from interviews. Confidentiality is essential to the interview process.
  • Conflict Assessments should always ask the threshold question: Should a consensus-based process be attempted at all?
  • Likeliness to be fruitful. Remember that a consensus decision or settlement is only one measure of success.
  • Structure and preparation. If the Conflict Assessment finds the likelihood of success is sufficient to justify the effort, it should address, for stakeholder consideration, the type of process, scope, objectives, participation, timelines, draft groundrules, information needed and other process design issues.
  • Conflict Diagnosis: "Conflict Assessment conducted by a non-partisan mediator should be considered one type of Conflict Diagnosis. Agencies and others directly involved in the conflict can diagnose some situations without the assistance of an outside neutral." Proposed Definition: "Dispassionate evaluation of the situation, based on the understanding of the stakeholder perspectives, to determine a course of actions that is likely to resolve all or part of the conflict."

A well crafted Situation/Conflict Assessment should achieve:

  • clarification of the problem,
  • getting a better feeling for potentialities of negotiation,
  • jump starting a negotiation process, structuring the exchange of scientific information and background of the conflict: looking at uncertainties, accumulating evidence, conducting experiments, and
  • keeping the problem informed along the way.

CONCUR has completed Situation / Conflict Assessments for the following projects:

Situation/Conflict Assessment Fact Sheet (PDF)

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Environmental Policy Analysis

CONCUR's environmental policy analysis services help organizations take the initiative when dealing with federal, state and local agencies. Organizations can be more effective by acting proactively to understand and comply with public policy and regulatory requirements and by integrating these requirements into their own strategic planning and day-to-day operations.

The CONCUR team provides a full range of legal policy analysis and implementation skills to assist regional, state and national governments. We are adept at identifying how and why tradeoffs among competing interest groups affect natural resource use and at providing professional support to civil servants and policy makers involved in policy formulation and implementation.

CONCUR can provide the following services in support of environmental policy analysis:

  • Characterize and evaluate existing policies and the policy environment to assess successes and shortcomings in the policy making process;
  • Convening of participatory policy making processes such as regulatory negotiations to design policies that fairly represent divergent viewpoints and interests;
  • Structuring post-policy monitoring and evaluation to determine the success of policies and guide where changes are needed;
  • Developing a Strategic Environmental Plan to integrate your Strategic Plan with a customized regulatory compliance strategy;
  • Creating a Regulatory Roadmap to help you understand precisely which regulations and guidelines apply to your organization, products and manufacturing processes; and
  • Analyzing future Regulatory Trends so your organization can get "ahead of the curve" in developing your operational strategy.

Our projects involving environmental policy analysis are:

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Natural Resource Planning

Natural Resource Planning at a local, regional, and statewide scale typically involves multiple public and private agencies. With our dual expertise in planning and agreement-focussed facilitation, we are often called upon to manage collaborative planning processes for watershed management, species recovery, or base reuse, water supply, and flood protection issues. CONCUR brings in-depth knowledge of natural resource and environmental law as well as physical environmental planning to this work. Often, we team with site planners, ecologists, civil engineers, and other disciplinary specialists to craft plans that take account of current site conditions, infrastructure needs and constraints, and fiscal considerations.

As part of a Natural Resource Planning program, CONCUR provides several services:

  • Preparation of natural resource management plans for specific sites, subregions or regions;
  • Independent review of plans, policies and environmental documents prepared by other professionals;
  • Creation of ranking systems to screen and weight plan alternatives;
  • Design of administration guidelines, regulations and legislation to implement natural resource management plans;
  • Management of Collaborative Planning Processes.
A few of the projects we have worked on that involved natural resource planning are:

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Strategic Planning for Organizations

Strategic Planning is a step-by-step process to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of organizations. It can be an essential component to an organization's overall success. CONCUR has provided guidance to several organizations to help them clarify and set a course to achieve their goals. This service has become especially popular in response to shrinking public revenues and a more competitive private marketplace that forces organizations to revise their goals and strategically plan how to meet them.

Strategic Planning provides a framework for key personnel to cooperatively re-prioritize their collective goals in a safe, structured environment. Strategic Planning is efficient; it recognizes and taps internal expertise within an organization, allows authority to be delegated to the most capable personnel and creates a mechanism for following up key ideas to make sure they are implemented.

CONCUR works with executive staff, Boards of Directors and project teams to clarify strategic choices and clearly map the future. Often, an effective course of action is to convene in-house workshops dedicated to specific Strategic Planning objectives, such as creating an Annual Strategic Plan.

As part of a Strategic Planning program, CONCUR provides several services:

  • Conducting Issue Audits within organizations to highlight success and identify obstacles to achieving greater success;
  • Conducting training in collaborative problem solving to strengthen internal team building;
  • Facilitating meetings of a Board of Directors and Executive Staff to clarify goals, set an annual planning agenda and prioritize projects and tasks;
  • Creating a climate for reflective brainstorming by introducing ground rules and using training activities that build mutual trust;
  • Assisting a team to prepare a Vision Statement to address changing organizational, financial or political demands;
  • Creating a Strategic Planning Map with specific milestones to achieve specific goals as part of a transition.

A few of the projects we have worked on that involved strategic planning are:

Strategic Planning Fact Sheet (PDF)

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Training in Effective Negotiation, Facilitation, and Mediation

CONCUR has drawn upon its experience in resolving tough disputes in both the public and private sectors to design a specialized training program. This program was developed in response to a growing demand for more effective problem-solving skills among top policy makers and administrators, business, industry and community groups and attorneys. The CONCUR training program provides participants with the tools to help resolve complex disputes within or between organizations and agencies.

CONCUR offers two public training courses per year:

"Negotiating Effective Environmental Agreements", a two day course, is offered each Spring.

"Facilitating and Mediating Effective Environmental Agreements", a three day course, is offered each Fall.

We also provide customized training courses for organizations.

For a list of organizations that have sent staff to our courses, please click here. For more information, please check out our training page.

Training Services Fact Sheet (PDF)

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