The role of environmental assessment in the planning and authorisation of extractive industry projects

Abstract

The relationships between environmental assessment (EA) and project planning and authorisation are analysed, as two interacting processes, within the context of the UK extractive industry. The initial findings support the view that the quality of the environmental statements (ESs), which are produced at one stage of the process, is related to certain characteristics of the pre-ES submission stages of the process. They also show that the quality of ESs has a favourable influence on certain practices and outcomes during the post-ES submission stages. However, in some cases, these relationships are found to be relatively weak or even perverse, and they require further investigation. Overall, the study highlights the importance of analysing the performance of the EA process as a whole, rather than confining the analysis to the quality of the ESs produced at one stage of the process.