How can EIA support the transition to a green and circular economy?

EIA's are pivotal in addressing the cumulative and long-term effects of climate change on vulnerable communities by integrating comprehensive climate resilience strategies into their framework. By evaluating not only the immediate impacts but also the future implications of projects, EIAs can identify potential threats to vulnerable populations, such as increased flooding, droughts, or heatwaves. They enable proactive measures, including adaptive infrastructure, community engagement, and sustainable practices, to mitigate these risks. By incorporating climate scenarios and long-term projections, EIAs help ensure that development projects enhance resilience and contribute to the sustainable well-being of affected communities.

-An effective EIA is usually a product of a working regulatory regime. With that it is necessary to build into the requirements the green and circular economy principles. -There has to be a commitment points system in the presentation of mitigation measures whereby owners of the project commit to convincingly address those points

Environmental Impact Assessment - EIA itself represents the underline action plan to mitigate the Impacts due to day to day activities of human being. EIA can be considered as pre precautionary measure to plan and minimize the impact on Environment towards green & circular economy but the results of EIA are overlapped with need of economical growth of each country & hence the policies followed by the implementation effectiveness, as a greater challenge. At grass route level every action by human being on day to day basis can be assessed for its immediate, short term or long term impact on environment, which shall surely bring in changes from within to form a robust green & circular economy.

There is a need for a strong environmental legislative framework for EIA /SEA to play a role in facilitating the transition to a green and circular economy.

Certainly in Australia, the EIA process is a simple, non-scientific evidence based box ticking process to facilitate projects and relies heavily on the contorted adage that "absence of evidence is evidence of absence". For biological assessments, the speed of decision making is such that it is impossible and improbable to determine impacts where projects are located in less disturbed environments - they are incapable of determining the dynamics and stochasticity of ecosystems. As for determination of threatening processes and impacts, these are general off-the shelf packages that may or may not be relevant to the situation.

-Strengthening public participation almost like a jury system in addressing mitigation measures -Highlighting best practice operational measures that commit to greening and circular economy tenets

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) plays a crucial role in transitioning to a green and circular economy by offering the following benefits: 1.Identification of Environmental Impacts: EIA helps identify and assess the environmental impacts associated with projects, policies, or activities, enabling the implementation of measures to minimize these impacts. 2. Promotion of Resource Efficiency: By evaluating the complete life cycle of projects, EIA highlights opportunities to optimize resource use, encouraging more efficient practices and waste reduction.

I think a pivotal role of EIA in terms of communication between all affected groups should be highlighted. EIA enables to organise joint board for all interested bodies and entities involved in consideration process. This discussion board provides transparent opportunities for dialogue to find a solution to overcome environmental, social, political and economic disputes via getting an agreement with further steps to follow up

EIA is only effective if it is based on robust scientific investigations using the best available science over the time span necessary to collect the volume of data that would allow for impact determinations. The situation in Australia is EIA only pays lip-service to the science, the regulators apply strict non-evidence based decision making processes which exclude rather than include information, regulators and proponents work to minimise responsibility to effective environmental outcomes by turning the risk assessment pyramid on its head and beginning with the use of offset (real or imagined) to mitigate all impacts.

EIA benefits the transition by preventing ecological degradation, reducing waste, and encouraging the use of renewable resources. It supports sustainable growth by ensuring that projects align with environmental conservation and sustainability principles. Tools: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools for sustainability analysis and greenhouse Gas Protocol tools for emissions estimation.

Challenges include the complexity of predicting all environmental impacts, the need for comprehensive data, and ensuring stakeholder engagement. Overcoming these challenges is critical for EIA's effectiveness in supporting a green economy. Tools: Stakeholder engagement platforms like Bang the Table and environmental data platforms like Ecoinvent.

Agreed that EIA could be very useful here, but as a practitioner I see the time it takes to complete an EIA, particularly for something with a wide variety of potential impacts, as a major obstacle to it's effectiveness if we consider the strategic scale. For me one of the fundamental questions is how can an EIA be done much more rapidly, while still achieving even a proportion of eh things it could do?

Das ist alles richtig. Allerdings geht es nicht um "grüne" Kreislaufwirtschaft. Es geht um eine CE für eine Wirtschaft in der die Enstehung von Müll obsolet ist. Hier haben Kollegen*innen von EPEA Hamburg und ihrem weiten Netzwerk mit Cradle to Cradle Design tolle Modelle für Synergien entwickelt.

The challenge of EIA in Australia is to shift it from a purely bureaucratic process relying on scant detail and evidence, i.e., a shallow and nebulous box ticking process, to a scientific evidence based systematic robust decision making process.

Das ist alles richtig. Allerdings geht es nicht um "grüne" Kreislaufwirtschaft. Es geht um eine CE für eine Wirtschaft in der die Enstehung von Müll obsolet ist. Hier haben Kollegen*innen von EPEA Hamburg und ihrem weiten Netzwerk mit Cradle to Cradle Design tolle Modelle für Synergien entwickelt.

EIA is well positioned for transitioning sectors like agriculture and energy toward a circular economy by assessing emissions, resource efficiency, and waste management. For example, in energy-intensive industries, EIA can quantify carbon emissions, water use, and material flows, enabling data-driven decisions on reducing environmental impact. In agriculture, EIA can evaluate soil degradation or nutrient run-off in intensive farming systems, supporting decisions to minimize resource depletion. EIA can also help counter political resistance by providing quantifiable trade-offs between economic gains& environmental costs. While balancing alignment with circular economy targets like GHG emissions reductions under global frameworks.

-Initiating and supporting a collaborative EIA process that allows results sharing to capture whatever is working well and what is not

I've actively engaged in projects where Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) have proven instrumental in not only identifying potential environmental impacts but also unveiling opportunities for resource efficiency and circular economy practices. Through stakeholder collaboration and strategic planning, we transformed challenges into innovative solutions, aligning projects not only with environmental regulations but also positioning them as pioneers in sustainable practices, contributing significantly to the broader transition toward a green and circular economy.

Effective determination of impacts requires robust longer term systematic assessments because the very fact is the absence of evidence IS NOT evidence of absence. The current system in Australia attempts to streamline and fast-track approvals by stripping EIA of all its scientific integrity and credibility by shortening the approvals process and removing the need for detailed studies. This facade has become so inculcated into the psyche of the environmental services industry, many think the work they do is of the highest scientific standards and appropriate the term scientists in their professional title - by any measure, it is not.

-Consider the connection between the benefits of EIA implementation measures and ESG (environment social and governance) implementation to harness common feature benefits

-Create an effective platform for advocacy groups to provide unbiased checks and balances as a supportive measure to the transition to green and circular economy