The Civil Engineering Contractor June 2019 | Page 7

leading edge of environmental regulation,
developers often focus on ensuring compliance
across the various requirements – and so tend to
avoid what is considered as additional attention
to environmental issues.
Municipalities, on the other hand, are legally
required to subject their integrated development
plans (IDPs) and spatial development frameworks
(SPFs) to an SEA, which results in more realistic and
achievable planning frameworks. “There has been a
good uptake of SEAs and the municipalities should
be encouraged to continue to develop them.”
Burmeister notes that the SEA has relevance
not just to spatial elements of environmental
impact, but also underscores the reputational
risk that a project might face from its social
effects on neighbouring communities.
International trends
South Africa is an affiliate of the International Association
for Impact Assessment (IAIA) and hosted the 38th session of
the IAIA conference at the Durban International Convention
Centre from 16 to 19 May 2018.
IAIA is the leading global network on best practice in
the use of impact assessment for informed decision-making
regarding policies, programmes, plans and projects. It
was established in 1980 to bring together researchers,
practitioners and users of various impact assessments from
all corners of the world.
Based on her participation at the IAIA18 conference,
Burmeister says, “SEAs are more widely applied in the rest
of the world – even in disaster relief programmes, where
they assess the reaction to the disaster and the human need,
before permitting to undertake any action. It needn’t be
complex, but could simply look at what do you need to know
or determine beforehand; what is the most appropriate
location out of, say, three options; and how is a decision
going to impact the environment, for example.
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POLICYMAKERS
SEA process – a simplified SEA process flow.
“Yet in South Africa, even a quick two-week SEA
applied to any part of a project planning is highly unusual
– but it should be. It can be as simple as a workshop
to brainstorm some indicators to assess whether the
plan works for or against the goal. This is primarily
because developers are reluctant to incur costs before
any investment has been made on a project. An EIA is
often viewed as a grudge purchase because it is a legal
requirement and the level of detail required can be a
frustration. As a result, the EIA is often done late in the
project, whereas an SEA can come at an early stage and
allows a moment during planning to take a step back and
look at the project from a slightly different perspective,
often a previously unconsidered alternative will present
itself, one that has the potential to save significant time
and costs in the long run,” she says.
“Essentially, SEAs save companies time and money in the
long run by informing plans and policies and making them
more robust and realistic,” Burmeister adds. nn
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