In idyllic Son south of Oslo, the small law firm IOM Law has established itself as Norway’s foremost specialist in law related to carbon capture and storage, and is an advisor in large industrial projects. – I am often the only lawyer in the room, the only woman, and the only one under fifty, says Ingvild Ombudstvedt.
On the second floor of a small commercial building in Son, Ingvild Ombudstvedt (38) has created a small hub of specialists in so-called CCS, carbon capture and storage. From newly refurbished premises overlooking open fields, a dedicated team participates in the green shift, both nationally and internationally.
Lawyer Ingvild Ombudstvedt is the owner and prime mover, and is trained as both an economist and a lawyer. She is head of the CCS committee in Standard Norway, which negotiates technical standards for carbon capture and storage.
Her team includes lawyer Torhild Rossum (65), former legal director at Norske Shell, and freshman Lena Wammer Østgaard (26), who has a law degree and specializes in international law in England. She gave up an urban life in London in favor of environmental work in a Norwegian small town. Gülsen Dorak, who is a law graduate and has experience as a judge from Turkey, has also recently been employed by the firm, which also has resources in Denmark and Australia.
Experience from Brussels
It is now six years since Ombudstvedt started his own company to invest fully in climate technology. By then, she had several years behind her in Arntzen de Besche’s oil and energy department, where she worked, among other things, on Jens Stoltenberg’s “moon landing project” for full-scale capture and long ringing of CO 2 at Mongstad.
– The fact that I, as a solicitor, was thrown into such a large industrial project as Mongstad made me hooked. Carbon capture and storage became my path. After a few years, a temporary position became available as a senior advisor in the Global CCS Institute in Brussels.
The institute is a global think tank whose aim is to speed up the implementation of CCS.
Got off to a flying start
Ombudsvedt was granted leave from Arntzen de Besche, and moved to Belgium. She calls the work at the institute very educational, and a great experience.
When she returned home, she established her own legal practice to continue her investment in CCS. She says that after a short time a contract arrived at the door with her name on it.
– It was a bit scary, I was perhaps a bit young and a bit too inexperienced. But I thought I could try it for a while and see how it went.
She got off to a flying start, and was quickly commissioned by the Brussels Institute, which wanted a local representative for assignments in Norway and the Baltics.
– Then the ball started rolling, and I’ve had a full portfolio since.
Many public clients
She has varied assignments, and spends some time on the CSS committee, where standards are developed. The work is supported by the CLIMIT programme, a research fund managed by the Research Council and Gassnova.
IOM Law also advises countries on how to build and use regulations for carbon capture and storage, and has many public clients.
– A client engaged us to design a regulatory framework for financial incentives to capture and store biogenic emissions. If, for example, you burn food waste at the Klemetsrud plant in Oslo, you get biogenic emissions. If CO 2 is captured from the flue gas there and stored on the Norwegian continental shelf, a negative emission has been created by CO 2 being removed from the atmospheric cycle.
– This is something that both the UN and authorities around the world agree must be done to slow down climate change, but a legal framework is lacking to allow the industry to do the work, says Ombudstvedt.
In the past, IOM Law has also worked for the European Commission to map gaps in regulations relating to the use of CO 2 in industrial processes, and now the company is contributing to the European Commission’s work on revising the guidance documents for the CCS Directive, which is the European framework for CO 2 storage, she says.
Get lawyers on board
Ombudsvedt is often travelling, including to the USA.
– We have two projects there. Among other things, we will work with regulatory frameworks to be able to store CO 2 on the American shelf, as can be done in Norway. As of today, there is no framework for this, and part of the job is to comment on draft regulations that the authorities are working on.
She admits that it is somewhat unbelievable that the small company in Son has such large, international clients.
– We are one of very few companies in the world that work dedicatedly on this. Very often I’m the only lawyer in the room, very often the only woman, and the only one under 50. My learning curve in technology, geology, physics, biology and chemistry has been steep, and sometimes it feels like I’ve gotten good at it beating. But it is a lot of fun to work on large industrial projects.
Part of what makes the work so exciting is working at the cross-section between law, technology, politics and social frameworks, she thinks.
– We sit in the middle and contribute to combating climate change, and are helping to build new industry which we believe will be the next industrial adventure in Norway.
Obstructed by regulations
Ombudstvedt believes that Norwegian lawyer legislation creates challenges for the company’s and for the employees’ development opportunities, and hopes that the new lawyer’s law will soon come into force.
– We have attached several people with international expertise to whom we are struggling to provide real career opportunities as a result of the judicial council monopoly. They cannot get a job as a solicitor in Norway without taking additional education here, and can only exceptionally operate as advisers and give legal advice. International competence is often critical for our clients, which reflects that the legal industry is developing. The clients’ needs cannot always be met by a lawyer with a Norwegian education and licence, she says.
– Right now, the CSS industry is experiencing huge growth, and I have never experienced so many new inquiries from customers, or received so many assignments as now, from all over the world. Just a couple of months ago I was in East Timor for work.
IOM Law wants to grow, not a lot, but a little.
– It’s more fun when there are more of us.
