Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a strategic decision support process that will enable the inclusion and integration of environmental and sustainability issues right from the early stages of the preparation of a CDS and throughout the CDS’s design and implementation stages.
The SEA building block starts by considering the context of the CDS and identifies when and how SEA can best be included as a useful and important part of the CDS process. SEAS helps identify key environmental and sustainability issues as well as contribute to identify which CDS options will lead to more sound environmental and sustainability outcomes in the long-term. The SEA building block can help answer many important questions in the CDS process. For instance:
Using SEA as a part of the CDS process from the very beginning (or as early as possible) will save time and efforts at later stages when implementation programmes and projects are shaped and confronted with the public views and with environmental regulations. SEA looks at the big picture, takes a proactive approach and discusses both the opportunities and risks of following certain options, bearing in mind public concerns and expectations.
SEA is internationally recognised as an important tool in sustainable development processes and is increasing in use all over the world in developed countries and in many developing countries including Viet Nam. SEA enables consideration of environmental and sustainability issues at the beginning and all the way through policy or strategy development processes (such as a CDS). SEA helps you examine and respond to the critical links between CDS and environmental and sustainability concerns.
All these benefits mean that although conducting the SEA building block requires extra resources and skills, SEA is an extremely important part of the CDS process.
The key principles that support this building block are:
Key components of this building block, not necessarily sequential, are:
What are the important issues to think about and why do we need SEA?
Forward-looking approaches, such as SEA, require a good understanding of context, of what can influence and enable the leap for future thinking. It includes understanding the vision set for the City Development Strategy, the intended strategic development issues, as well as the environmental and sustainability issues that will determine the analysis and assessment to be undertaken.
The focus on few but relevant critical factors will enable a lean and workable framework for analysis and assessment (Partidário, 2007). The critical factors, resulting from an integration of the environmental and sustainability issues with the identified driving forces or strategic issues in the development processes, as well as with the strategic environmental & sustainability framework, will ensure that the SEA attention is not dispersed into issues that are marginal to an effective strategic assessment. Critical factors become the assessment factors that may take a positive (opportunity) or a negative (risk) direction depending on the strategic option being assessed. To ensure a workable framework, critical factors should be no less that three and no more than eight.
Example: Critical factors
In face of current international priorities, three critical factors will need to be considered at all times:
Partidário, 2007a
It is fundamental to establish a Strategic Environmental & Sustainability (E&S) Framework for the assessment, acting as a major referential for assessment of strategic options. The Strategic E&S Framework provides a framework of major or global policy intentions, objectives and targets set in multiple policy documents, such as national sustainable development strategies, national environmental policy, climate change and energy policy, other sectoral established policies at national or regional/provincial levels, that provide a policy reference for what is intended to be achieved in that particular sector.
Policy analysis can be used to establish this strategic framework, which will be preferably based on objectives and targets (for example, half the number of poor people by 2015, or reduce carbon emissions per capita by X tons by 2012), or at the minimum described intentions. The Strategic E&S Framework will then be used , as part of the SEA, to check if proposed City Development Strategy options and actions will permit achieving national or provincial established objectives and targets.
Clarifying the purpose of the SEA and its object of assessment is part of understanding and setting up the context for SEA. Why do we need SEA? What is that we are trying to achieve with SEA? What are we applying SEA to? What are the strategic intentions that we need to consider? Without having clearly set what is the purpose of SEA and what is its object of assessment, SEA will likely become unfocused and non useful for decision-making.
Key questions to be addressed at this stage include:
Different techniques such as matrices, decision trees and case comparisons, can be used to establish causal links and identify the environmental and sustainability implications of intended policies or strategies.
SEA should actively engage key stakeholders and expert judgement through meetings and dedicated workshops to identify significant issues, different views and perspectives. These are often more important for a qualitative approach, where the lack of data may turn it impossible to make a more analytical interpretation of the context for SEA.
Example: SEA of Program for the rehabilitation of downtown São Paulo, Brazil
The SEA is being developed in close articulation with the rehabilitation programme and intends to provide for “the greening of the program”.
Four reference principles are cited in this process:
Key elements in the strategic appro ach adopted by the Program + SEA process include: a vision on the development of S.Paulo, engagement of three local players (Private Sector, Community and Public Sector), identification of common global and sectoral issues, establishment of an environmental policy and strategy for the municipality, including strategic objectives and the establishment of development scenarios. It is recognised that strategic thinking stimulates environmental and sectorial tactics. The project is still on-going and there are no evident signs of impact assessment approaches per se, except for the key issues identified where impacts can be expected.
Information provided in 2005 by Arcindo dos Santos, IDB, Social Programs Division SO1
When is the best time to use SEA inputs?
SEA can only be useful to the City Development Strategy if it acts at the right time with the right information. This means that SEA need to be strategically linked to the City Development Strategy process, to bring in the necessary information that will be strategically relevant at key moments.
SEA is an instrument that unfolds as a process. It may be more or less detailed and lengthy, depending on the agreed objectives of SEA, the scale of the assessment and the complexity of the City Development Strategy.
SEA can deliver different elements at different stages of a decision-making process: for example:
Decision windows are moments in a decision process that represent a strategic opportunity to influence decision-making and ensure that the principles of sustainability and impact assessment are fully integrated (Partidário, 2007). These decision windows are critical to shape the SEA process and need to be identified at an early stage to influence the organization of the SEA process, make it tailor-made to the decision process and ready for those critical decision windows.
SEA contribution to the City Development Strategy can be brought in through the form of data, analytical inputs or expert advice. Key advice and information, which stimulate ideas on opportunities while alerting to possible constraints, help thinking about actions and consequences of taking certain decisions.
What is it that we need to focus on? What are the critical factors in the assessment?
SEA is based on the analysis of trends and gaps in relation to a set of objectives to be achieved.
To develop the analysis SEA must:
SEA main purpose is to integrate environmental and sustainability issues into strategic development processes. The environmental and sustainability objectives are therefore of greater importance. However, City Development Strategy objectives and strategic issues are equally of major relevance to SEA, to ensure that SEA will play its role of good facilitator for environmental and sustainability integration. This can be achieved namely with critical factors identified at earlier stages which will enable a focused analysis and assessment.
SEA needs to be based on a thorough understanding of the potentially affected environment, social and economic systems, in view of the expected trends that are relevant for the set critical factors. A simulation on expected trends, anchored on an existing situation, is necessary. Particular attention should be paid to the resilience and vulnerability of physical, ecological and social issues and the expected economic development trends.
Specialized studies need to be undertaken, to inform the critical factors in SEA. Such studies can usefully include trends in relation to the stock evolution of natural resources, sensitive areas and critical habitats, poverty trends and valued ecosystem components. It can include an analysis of the community acceptance vis-à-vis trends of evolving environmental quality issues. These studies will depend on the relevant strategic issues (e.g. emissions and air quality trends associated to energy and transport strategies).
Options are a critical ingredient in SEA. Options are a planning outcome but may derive from the analysis of trends in SEA. The identification and evaluation of suitable options may be assisted by future scenario building and back-casting methodologies. Options are the main operational element in subsequent assessment.
Should we should follow current trends or change them? And who are 'we'?
SEA is a participatory process. It allows civil society, including the private sector and relevant stakeholders that will be affected by a proposed City Development Strategy, to contribute environmental and sustainability inputs to strategic decision-making. The community and key stakeholders can be instrumental in identifying gaps, current trends, as well as in confirming the need for change in current trends.
Fundamental questions at this stage are:
SEA should develop with the City Development Strategy a careful stakeholder analysis. This will identify key stakeholders and prepare a communication and participation plan to be used throughout the SEA and the City Development Strategy alike. If the public is not used to being engaged, particularly at the strategic level and if there are no precedents, it is critical to include an education component in the public engagement process. Active public engagement should take place throughout the SEA process, onwards to implementation of follow-up.
The characteristics of the various stakeholders will help define the appropriate communication methods. It is important to identify and engage those stakeholders who are vulnerable (e.g. exposed to environmental degradation) and marginalised (e.g. the poor). Such groups may have little or no experience in providing input to decision-making. It will be important to identify the means of best communication with them. Similarly, to identify stakeholders who may not have access to the internet, lack access to public libraries, speak a different language, are illiterate, have cultural differences or other characteristics that need to be taken into consideration when planning for their engagement.
One of the challenges of SEA is to ensure that public engagement is meaningful and not just a case of providing detailed, rigorous and comprehensive information. The engagement process must provide an opportunity to influence decisions.
What are key risks and opportunities? What can we do and when?
This step deals with the assessment of the City Development Strategy options in relation to sustainable development goals and the enhancement of environmental objectives. Critical factors are used to identify benefits, or inconsistencies, between strategic development intentions and environmental or sustainable development objectives.
The purpose of the assessment component in SEA is to:
To conduct the assessment the following questions are important to ask:
Indirect effects are of paramount importance in SEA. Examples of policy reforms with clear environmental or SD implications are privatisation, energy policy, land reform, trade incentives, water supply and pricing. Certain measures can help to frame this issue, for example, the use of best versus worse case scenarios. Approaches should be selected that are appropriate to the issues at stake. Conflict analysis, synergistic and cumulative analysis present particular challenges and may require expert consideration.
It is important to focus on enhancing the positive opportunities of the intended strategic activities and avoiding negative risks. The purpose should be to achieve ‘win-win’ situations where multiple, mutually reinforcing gains can strengthen the economic basis, provide equitable conditions for all and protect and enhance the environment. Where this is impossible, trade-offs must be clearly documented to guide decision makers.
Establishing the linkages with key economic and social policies is crucial. For example, examination of the key environmental problems and risks in a city must include an assessment of the underlying causes of environmental stresses in order to assess the potential linkages between the environmental effects of the strategy being assessed and key strategic goals (e.g. strategies indirectly leading to urban environmental stress can impact negatively on poverty levels).
Assessment of such linkages and issues will reflect the perceived value of the environmental issues in the city, province and the country. Such assessment can draw on a number of tools or processes e.g. comparative risk assessment, economic assessment of environmental damage and survey based and participatory assessments. They can be used to find objective measures of how important an environmental issue is and thus how it should be factored into the policy formulation process alongside other issues.
What is it that we need to keep track of?
SEA follow-up includes several, complementary, activities: monitoring, evaluation, management and communication. All of these have different purposes and reinforce each other (Cherp, Partidário and Arts, 2007).
It is important to monitor the extent to which environmental and sustainability objectives, guidelines or recommendations made in the SEA are being met or pursued with the implementation of the City Development Strategy. The evolution of the environmental trends and whether the Strategy has been able to positively influence, or negatively affect such trends, is certainly important to monitor. Of particular relevance is the capacity to monitor the implementation of the Strategy and whether emergent strategies might have been introduced, modifying the initially planned and assessed City Development Strategy.
Evaluation means simply making sense of the monitoring data and especially linking them to management decisions. Information tracking systems can be used to monitor and check progress on the implementation of the strategy and report back within an evaluation format.
The management component in follow-up should ensure that SEA and SEA follow-up recommendations, are translated meaningfully into decisions and actions implementing the City Development Strategy and protecting the environment.
Two questions arise here:
The first question requires that the several types of actions and decisions that may be relevant to implementation of strategic initiatives be identified and scrutinized as to its causal links with relevant environmental and sustainability issues.
The communication component requires that participation of stakeholders go beyond information and consultation. Communication plays an important role in learning processes, formation of cultures, networks and institutions, which are key components of societal change.
SEA follow-up should be fully integrated with the City Development Strategy monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. Strategic management measures, monitoring of city development evolution trends and reaction of the environmental, social and economic systems, along with synergistic and cumulative effects, are amongst the several aspects to be followed-up.
Methods and indicators for this purpose need to be developed on a case-by-case basis. Sustainable development indicators, as well as environmental indicators may need to be set up as appropriate, or withdrawn from existing sustainable development national or local strategies, such as state of environment reports, state of spatial planning reports, local agendas 21 indicators and monitoring schemes, environmental quality monitoring networks and other relevant schemes are quite useful and relevant in SEA follow-up.
Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is a separate building block, however M&E needs to be done for every building block for accountability and learning purposes. Keep records of all activities conducted and make sure that you document the process of carrying out 'Strategic Environmental Assessment' building block. This means you need to document what happened for each 'key component' of this building block and share this information with appropriate stakeholders.
Also, use the following set of questions to help you learn from doing the 'Strategic Environmental Assessment' Building Block and to provide accountability for funds spent on this building block. This is best done either through a workshop, interviews or a survey, and you will need to include the views of all those staff with key responsibilities for this building block. Consult the M&E section in this Guide for further information on monitoring and evaluation.
Talk to government officials and stakeholders – what is that they consider important for the environment and sustainability? What is that they see as problems and opportunities?
Produce short and as many reports as needed; the purpose is to target key decision that can make a difference to the environment. Use short-hand reporting system; at the end of the process, bring it all together to produce the final SEA report that will inform future actions.
A Tool for better Governance and Sustainable Decisions, United Nations University training course at CSD15, New York (available online at http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/policy.htm)
