Jury out on Sustainability Impact Assessment

Date: 01/08/02

By David Wilkinson

THE EU has been working hard behind the scenes to ensure the success of Johannesburg, with the active support and involvement of the NGO community.

But as the EU shows leadership on the world stage, so inevitably the spotlight turns to its own internal track record on sustainable development. Figures released by the European Environment Agency show poor progress in relation to waste, chemicals, bio-diversity and the environmental impacts of transport.

Last year, in Göteborg, Union leaders agreed to the first elements of an EU sustainable development strategy, including important commitments on reforming the common agricultural and fisheries policies, and decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation.

But perhaps the most tangible commitment related to the introduction of Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) for all major EU policy proposals. This could turn out to have far-reaching implications for the content of key EU policies and the way they are put together - but only if taken seriously.

SIA is a procedure for systematically assessing and reporting on all the likely direct and indirect economic, social and environmental impacts of a proposed policy measure, and identifying who wins and who loses.

It requires consideration of a range of policy options - including 'do nothing' - and clarification of any trade-offs between competing priorities.

SIA is an aid to, rather than a tool for, decision making, so final policy choices are still made on the basis of political considerations. But SIA should mean that decision makers are better informed of the consequences of their actions.

For example, a proper SIA of the End- of-Life Vehicles Directive could have avoided what are likely to be its most undesirable consequences: that the costs of disposing of scrapped cars will fall on their last owners (often the poor and the elderly) and encourage illegal dumping, entirely negating its main purpose.

SIA therefore has the potential to deliver radical change. It lets the sunshine into the policymaker's 'black box'; it gives the less powerful a greater say; and it ensures that considerations such as equity or the protection of bio-diversity are given a full airing alongside economic concerns.

A Commission framework for carrying out SIAs was unveiled last month as part of a package of measures on better regulation. The new procedures will come on stream later this year and be fully operational by 2004, so they should certainly apply to the details of major reforms to the CAP, the common fisheries policy and the structural funds.

SIAs will form part of a new 'global' impact assessment (IA) system that builds on and replaces a range of partial approaches within the Commission focused, for example, on impacts on business, the environment, subsidiarity and budgetary expenditure.

IA will apply to proposed measures appearing in the Commission's annual policy strategy and work programme. All proposals will need to have a preliminary impact assessment, while those identified by commissioners as having substantial impacts will have to have an extended impact assessment.

Certainly, the new system has the potential to open up the EU's policy process and help embed sustainable development into its sectoral policies.

But there are considerable doubts - particularly among NGOs - about whether it can deliver.

Lessons need to be learned from the weaknesses of the Commission's former, partial assessment systems.

Apart from their limited focus and lack of coordination, these were largely ineffective because they lacked high-level political support.

Requirements for assessments were either ignored by the individual DGs, done badly, or done too late. Admittedly, the new integrated impact assessment system has more 'bite' than its predecessors in that DGs must do a preliminary and/or extended assessment of their proposals as a condition for their endorsement by commissioners.

However, the 'silo mentality' of most DGs and the political power of some raise doubts about whether the secretariat-general has the clout to demand an extended assessment from a reluctant DG, or to reject as unacceptable a slipshod piece of work.

Here, it may need to call on help from the Council of Ministers and/or European Parliament.

For the new system to work, the Commission needs their active cooperation, so a new inter-institutional agreement on better regulation is to be drawn up before the end of the year.

This could give ministers and MEPs the right to refuse Commission proposals if their SIAs are not up to scratch.

Another concern is that only a few, 'safe' policy options will ever get considered.

And a further key issue concerns resources. Good information costs money - but the Commission has explicitly ruled out providing more of it. Every DG will need to collect more data, appoint skilled staff and consultants, and organise extensive consultation exercises.

For its part, the secretariat-general will need to provide methodological guidance and training for the rest of the Commission, exercise some sort of quality control and organise networks of practitioners to exchange good practice.

Without the staff and money, there will always be pressure to limit the number and scope of extended IAs.

Environmental NGOs are also concerned that the environment could be sidelined in the new global assessment system.

They still have painful memories of the Barcelona summit last March, which was supposed to be the occasion for the first comprehensive review of the progress of all aspects of the EU's sustainable development strategy. Instead, it focused exclusively on economic and employment issues, with barely a mention of environmental priorities.

Next month the Commission will publish detailed guidance on SIA methodologies and practical arrangements for stakeholder consultations.

But we will have to wait until it agrees the annual policy strategy for 2004 before we judge whether the new impact assessment system really amounts to the 'quiet revolution' promised by the Commission - or whether it will still be business as usual.

• David Wilkinson is a senior fellow at the Institute for European Environmental Policy. Visit www.ieep.org.uk.

Feature on the European Commission's plans to introduce Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) for all major EU policy proposals. Article is part of a European Voice survey on sustainable development.