The Civil Engineering Contractor June 2019 | Page 6

POLICYMAKERS Look before you leap By Eamonn Ryan While many project champions conduct detailed environmental impact assessments (EIAs) when a project investigation is well advanced, most are unaware that an earlier – and more modest – strategic environmental assessment (SEA) may considerably reduce risk and costs by guiding policy decisions. 4 | CEC June 2019 A ccording to Philippa Burmeister, principal environmental scientist in SRK’s Durban office, the practical usefulness of an SEA is demonstrated by Transnet’s Long-Term Planning Framework. “It was the most incredible example of good governance because there was no legal need or practice requirement. It looked at creating a framework of sustainability criteria against which any policy could be assessed. We then took spatial long-term plans and overlaid them with a set of environmental constraints, and this process identified areas where development was likely to be delayed by the need to offset and mitigate impacts and in some instances where development would never have been approved. Without an SEA, Transnet would have proposed and banked on expansions on land that they couldn’t feasibly develop or obtain approval for without investing in significant and costly offsets.” Burmeister adds, even though South Africa’s environmental legislation is on a par with the best in the world, the country has been slow to recognise the value of SEAs because they are not legislated but are popular planning tools in many parts of the world. “The logic of an SEA is to prevent time and resources being expended on detailed planning, only to discover that the natural and social environment cannot support an initiative – or that the project will have an unacceptable impact on its environment, also known as fatal flaw identification,” says Burmeister. “There is often also an unfortunate preconception that SEAs are lengthy and expensive undertakings; in fact, they can be conducted quickly and simply, and still deliver significant value.” She highlights the two-way impact that companies need to consider when planning projects: while the focus is usually on the impact of the project on its environment, it is also vital for projects to consider how their environments will affect their own viability or sustainability. “It is more likely that a project becomes stalled or even halted by environmental impacts acting on that project, rather than the project’s ‘outward’ impacts – as the selection of appropriate alternatives can mitigate the latter,” she says. An SEA is not dissimilar to a planning process, she explains, which requires that the current situation facing a developer or planner must be comprehended, as well as the changes proposed and any alternatives to these that exist. Philippa Burmeister, principal environmental scientist in SRK’s Durban office. The environmental impact of the options need to be assessed and the outcome will inform the way forward based on sustainability implications. “The SEA could be described as an early-warning tool, at the policy development or planning phase, that draws attention to aspects of the policy or plan, which have the potential to undermine its successful implementation. Hence its strategic importance to investors and promoters,” she says. “For instance, we could identify significant waste disposal or resource requirements that cannot be met – giving the client input at a stage where they still have time to consider other options such as renewable technologies or waste recovery, or a site alternative where requirements can more easily be met.” Unlike the better-known practice of EIA, the performance of an SEA is not a legal requirement for private sector project developers, she notes; with South Africa at the www.civilsonline.co.za