2027 Program

CE3C 2027 brings together the leaders of the environmental and engineering consulting industry for two days of focused sessions on the business issues shaping the sector. The program combines pre-conference seminars, keynote addresses, and a new interactive Executive Exchange format designed to place every participant at the centre of the conversation.

Day 1

Wednesday — Pre-Conference Seminars & Executive Exchange

Pre-Conference Seminars: Risk Management

Wednesday Morning

Seminar 1 — Gowling WLG

10:00 AM · Legal Risks Facing Environmental & Engineering Consulting Leaders

Gowling WLG has been a CE3C sponsor since the inaugural conference and brings deep expertise in environmental law, corporate governance, and M&A legal advisory.

The Risk Landscape: Legal Exposures Every Consulting Executive Must Navigate in 2027

Topics covered:

Regulatory and compliance risk: the evolving patchwork of federal and provincial environmental regulations, ESG disclosure requirements, and increasing personal and corporate liability exposure for owners, shareholders, directors, and officers.
Professional liability and negligence: trends in claims against environmental consultants, including recent case law, what courts now expect of environmental professionals in terms of standard of care, and how AI-generated reports are changing the liability picture.
M&A transaction risk: environmental liabilities that surface during due diligence, representations and warranties exposure, and the legal pitfalls in vendor take-backs and management equity structures — including the role of the legal team in closing the transaction.
Contractual and subcontractor risk: limitation of liability clauses, indemnification gaps, and the risks of working with subcontractors and joint venture partners.
Data and cybersecurity risk: the legal obligations that arise from data breaches, including client data, environmental monitoring data, and proprietary methodologies.

Gowling presents these risks through composite scenarios based on anonymized real-world situations in the industry, with each scenario revealing a different category of risk.

Seminar 2 — Steamboat Insurance

11:00 AM · Managing Risk Through Insurance & Risk Transfer

Carl Spensieri, President of Steamboat Insurance, is well known to the CE3C audience. Steamboat specializes in environmental liability insurance, M&A representations and warranties coverage, and D&O insurance — services directly aligned with the risks identified in the Gowling session.

The Safety Net: How Insurance Can Protect Your Firm Against the Risks You Just Heard About

Topics covered:

Environmental liability insurance: responding to regulatory and compliance risks. Pollution liability policies, site-specific coverage, and how to ensure an insurance program keeps pace with evolving regulations — including the gap many firms face on emerging contaminants such as PFAS.
Professional liability (E&O) insurance: addressing professional negligence risks. What a well-structured E&O program looks like for an environmental consulting firm, how insurers view the use of AI tools in professional work, and what triggers coverage gaps.
Representations and warranties insurance: directly tied to the M&A risks discussed earlier and to the afternoon panel. How R&W insurance can facilitate deal completion, protect sellers from post-closing claims, and give buyers confidence — a product in which Steamboat specializes.
Directors and officers (D&O) insurance: personal liability protection for executives. How D&O coverage addresses regulatory enforcement, shareholder disputes, and the growing category of ESG-related claims.
Building a comprehensive risk management program: thinking about insurance not as a series of individual policies but as an integrated risk management strategy, and the role of trusted advisors — brokers, lawyers, and accountants — in designing the right program.

For each risk scenario Gowling introduces in the first seminar, Steamboat walks through the corresponding insurance solution, creating a direct connection between legal exposure and insurance coverage.

Opening Remarks

Wednesday, 1:30 PM

Industry Benchmarking Presentation

Wednesday, 2:00 PM

Through a high-level benchmarking of the industry the senior executives will be able to track Key Performance Indicators (KPI) while discussing the KPIs and other relevant operational and corporate topics important to their Canadian operations in a panel session forum at the conference. The benchmarking of the attending companies' performance conducted by CE3C has now become an index for the industry leaders to measure their performance against the industry.

A New Format: The Executive Exchange

CE3C 2027 introduces the Executive Exchange — a reimagined session format that replaces the traditional panel throughout the conference. The Executive Exchange is built around dialogue rather than lectures and positions every attendee as a participant. It reflects the core message of CE3C: connecting industry leaders to one another.

Three Executive Exchanges anchor the 2027 program, each pairing a curated group of contributors with structured audience participation.

Executive Exchange #1

M&A: Financing the Deal

Wednesday, 3:30 – 5:00 PM

Financing the Deal: Capital Strategies for Buyouts, Buy-ins, and Growth Acquisitions

M&A has been a CE3C signature session since 2018, and it returns in 2027 with a focus on deal financing. The session is built for executives who are actively thinking about ownership transitions, growth through acquisitions, ESOPs, or exit strategies, and it brings together voices from private equity and subordinated debt financing to work through the options.

Featured contributors:

Clairvest Group (Private Equity): Michael Andrisani
Additional contributor to be announced.

Discussion topics:

Vendor take-backs: when and why sellers should retain a stake, how it affects deal economics, and the risks involved.
Management equity participation: structuring equity for management teams in buyout scenarios, and how much skin in the game is typically expected.
Sub-debt and mezzanine financing: how these instruments fill the gap between senior debt and equity, and how they work in practice for mid-market consulting firms.
Private equity’s perspective: what PE firms are looking for in environmental and engineering consulting targets today, along with current valuation trends and deal structures.

Day 2

Thursday — Keynotes & Executive Exchanges

Keynote

The Nanos Report

Thursday, 8:30 – 10:00 AM

The Nanos Report delivers a data-rich picture of economic conditions, political dynamics, and public sentiment. This session takes that macro context and dives into what these macro level economics mean for how we run our businesses; this transition normally is in the mind of most executives attending the conference.

Nik Nanos

Chief Data Scientist & Founder, Nanos Research

Executive Exchange #2

The Business of Disruption

Thursday, 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM · Following the Nanos Report

Adapt or Be Disrupted: Forces Reshaping the Environmental Consulting Landscape

Following Nik Nanos’s keynote — a data-rich picture of economic conditions, political dynamics, and public sentiment — this Executive Exchange translates that macro view into something directly actionable for the executives in the room. The session explores the broader forces reshaping how environmental and engineering consulting firms compete, win work, and deliver value. AI is part of the story, but so are changing client expectations, new entrants, consolidation, regulatory shifts, and evolving talent models.

The discussion moves from macroeconomic context to the practical question most executives carry into the conference: what do these forces mean for how we run our businesses?

Contributors:

To be announced.

Keynote

AI in Professional Services

Thursday, 1:30 – 3:00 PM

The Thursday afternoon keynote focuses specifically on AI’s impact on professional services — not AI in general — and sets the stage for the Executive Exchange that immediately follows.

Keynote themes:

The AI readiness gap: where environmental and engineering consulting firms are today versus where they need to be, with a practical assessment of adoption levels in this industry relative to other professional services.
The economics of AI: how AI changes cost structures, pricing models, and margins. When AI investment pays off, and what an ROI timeline realistically looks like.
The talent equation: AI does not replace people, but it changes what people need to do. How firms should think about reskilling, hiring, and organizational design.
Risks and responsibilities: professional liability when AI is involved in deliverables, quality control, and client trust — connecting back to the morning pre-conference seminar on risk management.

Speaker: to be announced.

Executive Exchange #3

AI in Action

Thursday, 3:30 – 5:00 PM · Following the AI Keynote

The AI Playbook: Practical Strategies for Environmental & Engineering Leaders

The final session of the conference is the explicitly AI-focused Executive Exchange. Where the keynote provides strategic and economic framing, this session brings the discussion down to the practical, operational level.

Building on the 2025 conference panel “AI Revolution: Harnessing the Power for our Industry,” which covered broad topics such as use cases, competitive advantage, and ethics, the 2027 conversation reflects a more mature moment. AI development has moved rapidly, many firms have already begun experimenting or implementing, and the Executive Exchange format is designed to surface what is actually working, what is not, and where to invest next.