Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management

This paper examines the potential interrelationships between the environmental impact assessment (EIA) and environmental management systems (EMS) process. It begins by looking at the project cycle and the role of EIA in the planning and design phase. The links between the initial environmental review phase of environmental management systems and the EIA report recommendations is examined and it is noted that the format of EIA reports does not readily assist the development of an EMS.

The paper finds that the recommendations from an EIA could be structured and summarised to make them more accessible and that certifying the EMS could become a means of ensuring their implementation.

The use of environmental impact assessment (EIA) to address the environmental and social impacts of mining is common. At Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea, and Century mine in northern Australia, EIA failed to protect the biophysical and social environment of the mines. A detailed historical analysis was conducted to determine the chronology of the development of these projects, all internal and external decision making, and the reasons for this failure. This analysis showed that EIA was poorly timed and poorly integrated with the early phases of the mine developments. Environmental assessment expenditure and activity were concentrated in the development phase of the project and could not address impacts resulting from the earlier exploration and evaluation phases. Approval processes, such as permits and licences, that did occur in the early phases of the life of the mines, had very limited components of environmental appraisal or control. The primacy of development schedules, and the lack of communication between actors in the development of these large-scale projects, prohibited effective assessment and produced EIAs that were in many ways unrelated to the real environmental information needs of the project. In such large-scale projects it is essential to link EIA (and other approval/appraisal hoops) to environmental issues and decisions which occur throughout the continuum of mine development.

The developer of the Confederation Bridge Project in eastern Canada is successfully implementing a life-of-project environmental management strategy for this privately-funded public project. The cornerstone of this strategy is the Environmental Management Plan (EMP), an umbrella document which describes how the developer is managing all environmental aspects of the project throughout the construction phase and the subsequent 35-year period of private ownership. The EMP is comprised of several dynamic plans and programmes. Owing to unique circumstances, the EMP was developed prior to the completion of the environmental assessment, providing an example of the benefit of such, especially for a finance-build-own-operate-transfer infrastructure project. The experience of this project leads to the conclusion that the use of environmental management systems to encapsulate environmental management strategies early in project planning would be beneficial.

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) aims to assess the environmental effects of proposed policies, plans and programmes (PPPs), governing sectoral activities such as transport, agriculture, industry and tourism. Integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA) aims to assess the environmental effects of societal activities and government policy, not in respect to a particular proposed PPP, but in general. The thesis of this paper is that, in particular at the national and international level, SEA and IEA are instruments with complementary roles in the policy making process. A truly pro-active approach requires application of IEA next to SEA. They can also strengthen one another by making use of the same assessment tools. The paper makes use of the experiences of European practitioners of SEA and IEA. It makes no explicit reference to the general theory of planning and policy making, but the experiences and ideas are considered to be of use to practioners as well as policy makers and academics. The paper first describes the context of SEA and IEA — mainly in Europe — and then compares them on key characteristics. This leads to a discussion of the relationship between the two, possibilities for improvement and conclusions.

Research shows that the basic principles of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) are being applied to other than purely environmental issues. The demand for EIA at higher levels of planning and policy making, strategic environmental assessment (SEA), has given rise to a discussion about the need for an appropriate assessment or reference framework. This discussion is linked to the question of how sustainable development principles can be introduced in the decision making process. A general methodological framework for sustainability assessment, the so-called ASSIPAC-method (Assessing the Sustainability of Societal Initiatives and Proposing Agendas for Change) is presented. Two cases dealing with company transportation management plans illustrate the application of the ASSIPAC-method. Opportunities and limitations of the proposed sustainability assessment methodology are discussed.

Effective implementation of environmental policy proves difficult in many countries. Even where there is a comprehensive policy framework, the capacity for implementation at the local level may be weak. In some countries of central and eastern Europe, such as Slovakia, local government has acquired new environmental responsibilities, but lacks the capacity for exercising these roles. The Slovakian environmental impact assessment (EIA) law, for example, gives local government a role as a channel for public comment. However, most municipalities lack the technical expertise or political experience to play an effective role in the EIA process.

This paper describes a project supported by the UK Know-How Fund with Slovakian partners to develop municipal capacity. It offers a preliminary evaluation of the effectiveness of the programme, and emphasises the need for training in EIA to relate to municipalities' other environmental responsibilities. It draws some conclusions on cross-national learning between local government in central and western Europe.

Organisations are increasingly interested in understanding the impact of the environmental issues associated with their sites on company competitiveness and strategies. Within the implementation of an environmental management system (EMS), the initial environmental review (IER) is a first step in which a company begins to consider systematically all the factors driving the complex relationships between its production system and the external environment. Therefore, IER plays a crucial role in the definition of effective environmental policy and programmes and demands significant company resources. The paper focuses on the identification of the main objectives of the IER and the features characterising a methodological approach. These are then used to develop a methodological framework for IER that allows to integrate business strategy in establishing significant environmental aspects of a specific site. Indeed, companies are increasingly involved in managing the environment as an opportunity for competitive advantage, that requires to highlight the relationships between environmental impact of their processes and company strategy and objectives. The methodology is presented by means of a real-world case concerning the IER of a large aluminium alloy foundry.