
An experienced environmental and climate change lawyer, Tyson brings strategic acumen, skillful advocacy and technical insight to his work advising clients on their most complex energy and infrastructure projects, environmental commodities transactions and sustainability strategies.
Tyson is a partner in the firm’s Environmental Group, leads the firm's Climate Change Practice and co-leads the firm’s Sustainability Practice. He has advised on many of North America’s most high-profile energy and infrastructure projects, including on the development, permitting and financing of more than 50 wind, solar, gas, hydro and energy storage projects, together representing over 7,500 MW in installed capacity, as well as on significant electricity and gas transmission projects. He also advises on major carbon management initiatives, including innovative carbon dioxide removal projects and some of the world’s largest carbon capture and sequestration projects. Tyson gives strategic advice in navigating complex and often challenging environmental assessment and permitting processes, as well as on negotiations with regulatory agencies, Indigenous communities, local municipalities and other stakeholders.
Tyson also has decades of experience in the carbon and clean fuels markets, and is ranked by Chambers and Partners as a Global Market Leader in Climate Change law. He now advises some of North America’s largest companies on their environmental commodities transactions. He is regularly retained to advise on the development of carbon trading and compliance strategies, on agreements for the purchase and sale of carbon and clean fuel credits and renewable energy certificates, and on innovative long-term offtakes for carbon removal and avoidance projects. He has negotiated transactions in every major North American compliance market, and under every major voluntary standard.
Tyson also regularly advises on high-stakes, reputationally sensitive sustainability issues for major financial institutions, pension funds, asset managers and energy and resource companies. This work includes advising some of the country's largest companies – including several of Canada’s largest banks and most of Canada’s largest pension plans – on their climate transition strategies and disclosures. He also regularly helps clients with the evolving landscape of sustainability standards, methodologies and taxonomies and on strategies to mitigate greenwashing risks.
Tyson advises clients in many other sectors, including mining and metals, pulp and paper, water treatment, communications, iron and steel, chemicals, and manufacturing. He provides advice on the full range of issues in the environmental and energy-regulatory fields, including environmental assessments, project permitting, contaminated sites remediation, endangered species protection, spills response and reporting and the inspection, investigation and defence of environmental offences. In the mining sector, Tyson has acted for companies acquiring, financing, developing and operating major uranium, potash, coal and precious metals operations across the country. He has advised these clients on stakeholder relations and permitting, compliance and enforcement matters, including investigations and prosecutions under provincial and federal environmental laws.
Tyson is experienced, talented counsel. He is focused on delivering value. His advice is thoughtful, straightforward and gets to the crux of the matter immediately.
—Chambers Global, 2026
| 2016-2026 | Chambers Canada—Leading lawyer in environment |
| 2011-2026 | Chambers Global—Leading lawyer in environment |
| 2026 | Chambers Global Market Leaders—Leading lawyer in climate change |
| 2021-2025 | The Legal 500—Leading partner in environment |
| 2020-2026 | Best Lawyers in Canada—Leading lawyer in environmental law |
| 2018-2023 | The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory—Leading lawyer in environmental law |
| 2016-2022 | Who’s Who Legal— Global and National leading lawyer in environment and climate change |
| 2018 | Guide to the World’s Leading Energy and Environment Lawyers |
| 2017 | Lexpert’s Rising Stars: Leading Lawyers Under 40—One of Canada’s leading lawyers under 40 |
A former Fulbright Scholar at Stanford Law School, Tyson has published leading research on the Clean Development Mechanism in the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law and co-authored The Law of Climate Change in Canada, Canada’s leading text on the subject and winner of the Walter Owen Book Prize. Tyson has presented extensively on climate change issues, including at the University of Toronto Law School, McGill University Faculty of Law, Osgoode Law School, Stanford Law School, the Lincoln Alexander School of Law and the United Nations Environment Program. Tyson has also served as Canada’s national rapporteur at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
Tyson is a member of the Environmental Law and International Law Sections of the Ontario Bar Association, as well as the National Environmental, Energy and Resources Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association.
During his articles, Tyson was seconded to the legal department of Ontario Power Generation.