My EIA Principles

No.6 - Mitigation is a Last Resort, Not a First

I debated with myself at length whether to post this one (arguments with myself are often the most fulfilling). The experienced - and many less experienced - EIA professionals among us will say "no s**t". Or words to that effect. This is EIA 101. As basic as it gets.

I decided I would after a few conversations this week that reinforced something I've known for some time - that many of the misconceptions surrounding EIA lead us collectively into projects that are more difficult, more adversarial, and less efficient than they could be. One of the most pervasive of these, and the one I find myself challenging most often, is the idea that mitigation is there to "fix" the adverse impacts of a project. That the EIA is there to identify some impacts of my development and mitigation will make them go away.

The purpose of EIA is not, and never was, to come up with a list of mitigation measures. Or to say it another way, the measure of a successful EIA in my book is not how long the Schedule of Mitigation is, but rather how short it is. Assuming the EIA itself isn't deficient (perish that thought) then identifying mitigation measures must be the exception to deal with impacts that simply cannot be avoided through design, or through some other change to what's proposed. If one of my team comes to me with a 50-page Schedule of Mitigation, beaming with pride at how much they've been able to write, we're usually then all quickly altering our weekend plans. Of course it would never get to that stage. Those of you who have followed my other articles so far will be accustomed to my penchant for dramatic effect...

My point is this. An EIA Report with pages and pages of mitigation probably wasn't the bastion of high quality and effective EIA, nor did it - again probably - serve its purpose well. If EIA has any value to add, is genuinely serving its purpose and influencing a proposal - how and when it's built, it's physical form, what goes where and what can't go anywhere - then the predicted impacts requiring active mitigation measures to be applied should (in theory) be few. Any realistic and reasonable opportunity to avoid an impact by not doing something, or doing it differently, should already have been taken and by now be inherent in the scheme. There are inevitably impacts that can't be avoided through design alone, but those should be far fewer by the end of the EIA process than those that can. By which I mean, those that have.

Absolutely do document the impacts that have been avoided through design. This couldn't be more important in terms of telling the story of why a proposal is what it is and why it's considered acceptable, if it is. It's also often the best way of meeting the requirement to consider alternatives based in the EIA Regulations, particularly if there is little story to tell around site selection or the fundamental nature of the project. You've worked so hard to avoid unacceptable, or just undesirable, impacts so don't now throw the baby out with the bathwater. If anything, what has been avoided through in-built mitigation and design evolution is even more important than what hasn't. Telling the story of how EIA influences design should be at the heart of why we do it at all.

The goal of EIA is not to find problems we can fix with mitigation. We seek to avoid significant effects altogether as part of the proposal, not as well as.

Our over-worked and under-valued planning officer has a tough enough job turning complex EIA outputs into aspects of a planning permission that include, where necessary, valid and enforceable planning conditions. It is both our role and our duty as EIA professionals to explain clearly what design evolution has achieved in terms of reducing environmental impacts, to explain and justify what it couldn't, and to propose useful and effective mitigation in a way that it can be guaranteed and enforced. You will see more on this from IEMA in the coming months as we develop a work stream around framing mitigation for consent and implementation.

If you're confident in what you've done through the EIA process, take pride in how few mitigation measures you had to propose. Defend yourself with vigour at the disappointed looking client, wielding your pride and joy of six months work saying "Bit short innit?".

I take that as a compliment.