Reflecting on, and revising, international best practice principles for EIA follow-up

Abstract

Follow-up is a vital component of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), being essential for understanding assessment outcomes. Long-standing international best practice principles for EIA follow-up are reviewed, and revisions proposed, based on workshops with academics and practitioners, literature review and self-reflection. The proposed revision of EIA follow-up principles will feature an introduction with a simple definition and explanation of objectives for follow-up, and 15 principles. The revised principles address: objective; context; early establishment; project life-cycle; transparency; accessibility; accountability; performance criteria provision; enforcement; learning; adaptive environmental management; flexible or adaptive approach; tiering; cumulative effects and overall performance evaluation. Through publishing this proposal, it is hoped to simultaneously inform or inspire EIA practitioners to enhance their own follow-up knowledge and practices, and to seek input for further refinements that might lead to a revised set of international best practice principles for EIA follow-up.

Pursuing the Distilled Good Practices to Improve the Quality of Environmental Impact Assessment Reports and Hence Enhance the EIA Effectiveness and Help Address the Concerns of Project Proponents: An Indian Context

“…74 good practices for EIA are proposed [11] , grouped under 22 themes. International best practice principles for EIA follow-up, a vital element of EIA, are reviewed, and the revised EIA follow-up best practice principles are proposed [59] .…”

“…Citing references rather than describing theory in the EIA report can reduce its bulk. Good practice EIA entails that the EIA report is written in such a manner that different chapters are linked with each other and properly documented [31] to facilitate EIA review, derive terms and conditions for EC [69] , and aid EIA follow-up [59,70,71] .…”

“…Good practice EIA follow-up recognizes the importance of the EIA follow-up, given that ultimately the actual impacts are relevant to protect the environment, not the predicted impacts, and that the follow-up alone can provide concrete evidence of the environmental outcomes [59] through monitoring and auditing. EIA follow-up consists of five elements: monitoring, evaluation, management, participation, and governance [75] , and a mechanism to improve environmental outcomes by learning from the earlier management actions [14,76] .…”

“…project proponent, regulator, and public. The design and implementation of the revised EIA follow-up best practice principles [59] help to strengthen the overall EIA system further. Implementing the good practices discussed above, aligned to the global practices being evolved, with a commitment to environmental protection from the regulator, as well as the project proponent, can assure good EIA quality, and also address challenges for EIA [10,60] including those related to climate change [7] .…”

Advancing beyond project-scale Social Impact Assessment of transport infrastructure: insights into contextual constraints on practice

“…As Pinto et al (2019) and Morrison-Saunders et al (2021) identified, EIA follow-up and impact management can facilitate public accountability of decisionmaking in all levels of government when implemented effectively (see also Arts 1998). However, there is limited capacity for project-scale assessment reports to influence post-approval changes in either project design or the political, economic, environmental or social context in which projects develop.…”