The Insider/
ReGen expands its advisory offering and launches Approvals Accelerator

ReGen Strategic is entering a major new phase of growth, bringing together senior expertise across project approvals, community engagement and government advocacy to help proponents develop, build and operate complex projects across Western Australia.

ReGen has always evolved alongside our clients. What began as an advocacy and communications business has expanded as the challenges our clients face have become more complex. Major projects must now prepare for escalating community expectations, robust regulatory approval regimes, changing government policy and challenging stakeholder relationships, all while attempting to secure project finance. 

To meet these challenges, Regen has appointed two partners in the consulting business and commenced a strategic partnership with Tactica Advisory, led by respected former parliamentarians Hon. Peter Tinley AM and Jessica Shaw. Together, we have developed Approvals Accelerator, an integrated service supporting major project approvals in Western Australia from early project development through formal assessment and towards financial close.

Partnering with Tactica Advisory

Tactica brings senior government relationships, deep policy expertise and hands-on commercial and sectoral experience that is highly complementary to ReGen’s expertise. Peter served as a Minister in the McGowan Government and chaired the Parliament’s Economics and Industry Standing Committee, and he brings a working understanding of how Ministers, Cabinet and senior public servants reach decisions in practice. Jess spent her career inside Western Australia’s energy sector, including a decade leading commercial operations on the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline, and holds long-standing relationships with the energy regulators, approval agencies and market bodies that govern major projects here.

Together we can support clients across the entire project lifecycle, from strategy and commercial development through approvals, government and stakeholder engagement, sustainability and ultimately delivery.

What Approvals Accelerator does

Most of the value in an approval is decided before the formal approvals process even begins. Site selection, government relationships, community positioning and funding strategy should be settled at concept and pre-feasibility stage, and when they are handled well the formal process becomes a confirmation of work already done. We see many proponents engage late, and the recovery work is significantly more expensive than getting the foundations right at the start of a project.

Approvals Accelerator delivers six integrated capabilities through one team, scoped to a project’s stage and sequenced so each piece reinforces the others. The formal environmental approvals work, the government and ministerial engagement, the community and social impact program and the ESG and finance readiness documentation are planned as a single sequence, so the same evidence base serves the EPA referral, the EPBC assessment, the funding application and the lender due diligence.

The service is built for projects where the approvals path is not obvious, including SWIS-connected renewables, critical minerals across the Pilbara, Goldfields and Mid West, and housing and industrial proposals that need ministerial engagement alongside formal assessment. Our focus sits with new renewables, energy infrastructure, critical minerals, manufacturing, defence and data projects.

Two new partners

We have also strengthened the senior leadership team with two partner appointments.

Patrick Gardner leads government and stakeholder engagement. He brings more than 20 years of experience across government, major corporates, professional services and the not-for-profit sector, including work as an economic adviser to the State Parliamentary Labor Party, a term as a councillor with the City of Belmont and a period as WA Campaigns Manager for the Wilderness Society.

Colin Davies heads up the specialist practice areas of sustainability, social impact and ESG. He is an environmental scientist with two decades of experience across resources, infrastructure and industrial projects in Australia and internationally, and he has advised major projects and international financial institutions including the World Bank, IFC and EBRD.

Patrick and Colin have both played an important role in ReGen’s growth, and these appointments reflect the leadership they will bring to our next phase. I continue as Managing Partner, providing leadership, strategic communications counsel and corporate advisory assistance.

Where we are heading

We are building a multidisciplinary business that helps clients manage complex projects as connected challenges, rather than treating strategy, sustainability, approvals, stakeholders, government and communications in isolation. Clients tell us that what they value most is end-to-end advisory, meaning the same team working with them from concept, achieving approvals, and partnering them through construction.

ReGen continues to work with longstanding clients across mining, construction, infrastructure, government and the not-for-profit sector.

If you are developing a project in Western Australia and want to talk through the approvals path early, let’s chat.