Over the last 18 months, AELERT has been working with members to run 15 regulatory capture workshops and develop practical guidance with valuable insights from trusted partners including Mataki Environmental to form a robust tool that can be implemented at all levels from senior leadership and officials to managers and team leaders plus all frontline and regulatory staff.

Dr Marie Doole, Director of Mataki Environmental, has conducted research into the topic and recently presented on the topic during the AELERT-INECE 2024 Global Summit on Turrbal and Jagera lands (Brisbane) Queensland. You can find the presentation recording under Breakout #4: Biodiversity; environmental planners; wildlife crime; park & land management.

This practical toolkit was created by AELERT members. Made by regulators for regulators. The AELERT leadership team authored the toolkit based on the experiences, insights and vision of AELERT members and partners from 15 workshops and events over the last 18 months. This included insights gained from Mataki Environmental and Recap Consultants. The toolkit, now ready for use, supports all regulators, at all levels in all jurisdictions, to actively address capture risks. It covers what it is and what it isn’t, the regulatory system and how capture can impact it, and the hierarchy of controls. It provides practical tips and guidance on what each of us can do to better know it, see it and stop it. We all have a role to play get in front of capture risks and uphold the integrity of the regulatory system.

The Regulatory Capture Toolkit covers:

• Regulatory Capture: What it is, what it isn’t,
• Risks and impacts to the whole regulatory system,
• Innovative ways to manage it using a hierarchy of controls
• Building awareness
• Identify early warnings
• Mitigating risks – elimination, substitution, structural and behavioural controls
• Identifying the role third parties need to play to uphold regulatory integrity
• What’s next – call for action

Members can access the toolkit inside the RESOURCE LIBRARY.

More on regulatory capture – an operational risk across the policy cycle

Dr Marie Doole explains, “recent research and commentary on regulatory capture in environmental legal systems highlights the risk posed by a failure to moderate the influence of regulated parties. The failure to properly balance competing interests, and a tendency to serve the loudest voices means our environmental legal systems commonly fail to deliver public interest outcomes. In the past, much scholarship has focused on the risk to frontline officers (bribery etc), when a much more insidious and effective capture strategy is to sway those higher in the policy process.”

Two recently released papers Dr Doole co-authored make the argument for regulatory capture to be treated as an ever-present operational risk for policy and regulatory agencies, to support staff wellbeing, maintain regulator reputation and uphold public interest ends more reliably.

“Demystifying what can be a slippery topic encourages frank and fearless conversations, enabling and empowering staff and executives to proactively identify, mitigate and monitor the risk of capture on their agencies and systems.”

You can access further reading on regulatory capture from researcher Dr Marie Doole here:

• Resource Management Journal April 2025 – Regulatory capture in environmental legal systems – two papers and a call to action
• Doole and Stephens 2025 – Drain the Swamp to Save the Swamp: mitigating capture in environmental regulatory systems | Policy Quarterly
• Doole, Stephens and Bertram 2024 – Navigating Murky Waters: characterising capture in environmental regulatory systems | Policy Quarterly

Marie is the Director of Mātaki Environmental, a boutique consulting practice based in the Wairarapa near New Zealand’s capital city of Wellington. Mātaki focuses on consulting to local and central government and the not for profit sector on all things research, strategy and regulation related. Marie has spent her career in both strategic and operational roles, developing a reputation for fearless and evidence based analysis, particularly in environmental policy and compliance.