C6.1 Environmental Impact Assessment
C6.1.1 Environmental Assessment
Environmental Assessment is a procedure that ensures that the environmental implications of decisions are taken into account before the decisions are made.
The process involves an analysis of the likely effects on the environment, recording those effects in a report and undertaking a public consultation exercise on the report. The comments and the report are taken into account when making the final decision and then informing the public about that decision afterwards.
C6.1.2 Environmental Impact Assessment
The term ‘Environmental Impact Assessment’ (EIA) describes a procedure that must be followed for certain types of projects before they can be given development consent (i.e. planning permission). The procedure is a means of drawing together, in a systematic way, an assessment of a project’s likely significant environmental effects. This helps to ensure that the importance of the predicted effects, and the scope for reducing them, are properly understood by the public and the relevant competent authority before it makes its decision.
Environmental Impact Assessment enables environmental factors to be considered alongside economic and social factors.