Are SEA and EIA procedures effective in Ukraine?
CEO of Ecognize shares her POV on environmental assessment approaches
First things first, what do these abbreviations mean?
*SEA = Strategic Environmental Assessment
*EIA=Environmental Impact Assessment
Ukraine has taken the approximation of its legislation in the environmental sphere to the one of the EU seriously. A long-awaited law on Environmental Impact Assessment has entered into force on 18 of December 2017 and gave hope to others that the companies start to comply with environmental law requirements. We now see the electronic Register on EIA filling with publicly-disclosed information on each new project falling under EIA categories.
It is refreshing to see and feel that public participation in environmental decisions lead to improved environmental quality and also enhances democracy through means of environmental tools.
Judging by the amount of refusals of the projects based on incorrect or insufficient public involvement reports found in the electronic Register, I have some hope that the voice of people will be heard while making a more informed and higher quality decision on whether the project should proceed or not, it should also contribute to an improved implementation of environmental policy and thus to a more sustainable use of the environment.
Since the adoption of the law on EIA, thus, slightly more than a year, we observe EIA being literally an instrument for the anticipation of resistance to planning and implementation, an instrument for better compliance through better information, and better compliance due to enhanced acceptance. EIA process tends to hit all so-called ‘success criteria’ — transparency of the process, open communication, early involvement, joint determination of process rules, impartiality of the mediation.
There seems to be enough openness now regarding the decision to be made, which was not the case before.
The participants of the process formerly had the impression that decisions have already been taken, and thus motivation to participate and change anything was in severely diminishing.
Apart from just public participation, the principal benefits of an EIA, such as the identification of key environmental issues, improvement of project design and higher standards of mitigation are included in the new EIA process too. On the contrary to the outgrown old way of doing EIA and environmental expertise, the new one has all the chances to be taken seriously.
The law on SEA has entered into force on 12 of October 2018, thus making it more recent than the law on EIA. Given that SEA, as we know, concerns the state’s policy and programs for so-called greening policy areas, and not the projects, it is still quite early to expect any visible or major changes with regard to SEA.
Overall, SEA is here to provide for a high level of protection of the environment, by integrating a wide range of environmental considerations into spatial planning. Since most of the plans and programs with significant environmental effects would require a strategic environmental impact assessment, adoption of the law on SEA last year was well needed and timely. Unfortunately, it is still quite hard to predict whether and how effectively it will work in the Ukrainian context.
Both EIA and SEA have all the chances to become effective and powerful tools for control over the quality of the environmentally-related projects, plans, and programs in Ukraine.
Enhancing transparency, encouraging public involvement, introducing high and serious fines for non-compliance, good and thorough communication — these are the pillars of successful implementation as I see them.
Ukraine has still a long way to go, it is important not to stop, relax and wander, but to apply more power into quality decision-making and raising firm belief that with the good state of environment good business and economy will come. Putting business interests ahead of environmental will not lead us anywhere, and so EIA and SEA should be our companions on a way to a greener and sounder future.
Anna Chashchyna
