Environmental Impact Assessment Report: Recent Debates and Limitations

This report delves into the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as a crucial tool for environmental management systems, guiding businesses in reducing environmental impacts. It begins by outlining recent debates surrounding EIA, including issues with public participation, consistency in project selection, and the complexity of reports. The report then explores major limitations of EIA, such as the neglect of cumulative and global impacts, which can significantly affect project success and decision-making. Furthermore, it discusses various aspects of EIA policy, highlighting areas that require clarification, such as the duration of EIA, the quality of baseline information, record of decision, and specialist studies. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of addressing these limitations and policy aspects to enhance the effectiveness of EIA in promoting sustainable economic development.

Environmental
management system
and tools

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
1. Recent debate about EIA.........................................................................................................1
2. Major limitations of EIA..........................................................................................................1
3. Aspects of EIA policy..............................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Environmental management system can be defied as set of different practices and
processes which guides business entities to reduce their environmental impacts and enhance
operational efficiency. EIA is one of the tool which is used for this purpose which guides
companies to assess to analyse environmental impacts of their proposed projects (Ivanova and
et.al., 2016). This report is based upon EIA and covers various topics such as recent debates and
major limitations of it. Along with this, aspects of EIA policy are also discussed under this
assignment.
MAIN BODY
1. Recent debate about EIA
EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment): It is mainly used by organisations to analyse
implication of their new business projects which are going to be undertaken by them in future. It
is mainly used for the purpose of ensuring sustainable economic development. There are various
recent debates regarding EIA which have been discussed in media. All the issue and problems in
EIA are as follows:
 EIA creates difficulties in making sure useful and adequate involvement or participation
of public (Issues with EIA, 2017).
 There is a low level of consistency in the process of selecting developments which
requires particular environmental impact assessment.
 All the EIA reports are very lengthy and technically complex which results in problems
for decision makers and public to understand them.
 In most of the countries there is lack of technical and managerial capacities which creates
problems for them to carry out EIA.
2. Major limitations of EIA
There are various limitations of EIA which should be focused by all the business entities
while conducting it as it can help to assure analysis of all the negative factors which may result
in failure of projects undertaken by them.
According to Quick, (2014), there are various types of impacts which are ignored by EIA
which are required to be focused to analyse potential implications of different projects which are
going to be completed by the companies. These impacts are cumulative and global.
1

Cumulative impacts: It includes all the environmental implications of multiple projects,
plans and other actions that are taken by the company. If these are ignored then it can affects the
success of different business operations (Leme and et.al., 2014).
Global impacts: All such types of implications which may go beyond project and local
level for the purpose of changes in environmental condition are known as global impacts. If these
are ignored while working on a plan of action or project then it can result in inappropriate
decision making. For example, induced, indirect or secondary impacts which mat take place a
few steps far from actual action are ignored in EIA. For instance, construction of new buildings
enhances movement of vehicles which results in increased pollution level in air. It is one of the
major impact on the environment due to projects undertaken by construction companies.
Both the above described points reflects that major limitations of EIA includes ignorance
of different impacts which are required to be focused by organisations while working on their
projects. Avoidance of them results in lack of information of the impacts of business operations
on environment.
3. Aspects of EIA policy
According to me there are four different aspects of EIA policy which seems to be unclear
or uncertain. All these points are discussed below and I think all of them are required to be
clarified by EIA further:
 Duration of EIA and authority review: These are determined by the starts and end
dates of the project.
 Frequency and quality of baseline information: It is analysed with the help of simple
scale which is related to quantity of data and preciseness of the details of various
elements. The information which is related to EIA and not presented in appropriate
manner is considered as poor quality (Weston, 2014).
 Record of decision: It is investigated with the specific acknowledgement to the point
where it was issued and situation of favourable reception.
 Frequency and quality of specialist studies: These are determined in the same way as
frequency and quality of baseline information is analysed.
2

CONCLUSION
From the above project report it has been concluded that EIA is a process which should
be focused by business entities in order to analyse impacts of different projects and plan of action
on environment. There are various limitations such as ignorance of cumulative and global
impacts. Recently media have discussed regarding the issues related to it. These are difficult to
understand for public and decisions maker due to high level of complexity and technical
involvement, limited consistency in selection of developments etc.
3

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Ivanova, D. and et.al., 2016. Environmental impact assessment of household
consumption. Journal of Industrial Ecology. 20(3). pp.526-536.
Leme, M. M. V. and et.al., 2014. Techno-economic analysis and environmental impact
assessment of energy recovery from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in
Brazil. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 87. pp.8-20.
Quick, J.C., 2014. Carbon dioxide emission tallies for 210 US coal-fired power plants: A
comparison of two accounting methods. Journal of the Air & Waste Management
Association. 64(1). pp.73-79.
Weston, J., 2014. Planning and environmental impact assessment in practice. Routledge.
Online
Issues with EIA. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.aboutcivil.org/problems-environmental-impact-assessment>
4