Institutionalized Evaluations of Sustainable Development in Belgium: The Future of a Federal Sustainability Impact Assessment Process

Author(s):  
Tom Bauler
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (0) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
Parnuna Petrina Egede Dahl ◽  
Anne Merrild Hansen

Mineral extraction is pursued in Greenland to strengthen the national economy. In order that new industries promote sustainable development, environmental impact assessments and social impact assessments are legally required and undertaken by companies prior to license approval to inform decision-making. Knowledge systems in Arctic indigenous communities have evolved through adaptive processes over generations, and indigenous knowledge (IK) is considered a great source of information on local environments and related ecosystem services. In Greenland the Inuit are in the majority, and Greenlanders are still considered indigenous. The Inuit Circumpolar Council stresses that utilizing IK is highly relevant in the Greenland context. Impact assessment processes involve stakeholder engagement and public participation, and hence offer arenas for potential knowledge sharing and thereby the utilization of IK. Based on the assumption that IK is a valuable knowledge resource, which can supplement and improve impact assessments in Greenland thus supporting sustainable development, this paper presents an investigation of how IK is utilized in the last stages of an impact assessment process when the final report is subject to a hearing in three recent mining projects in Greenland.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Savio Barros de Mendonca ◽  
Anne-Elisabeth Laques

It is important to insert agricultural research in this paper by considering it as a strategic area for providing knowledge and a technological base for agricultural production, considering that this sector generates outcomes with respective impacts to rural zones, supply-chain, economy, society and environment, representing a key piece for reaching United Nations objectives of sustainable development to each country and to the planet. Aiming to analyze how agricultural research organizations (as for instance: INRA and CIRAD, from France and EMBRAPA, from Brazil) have driving sustainability impact assessment methodologies and their interaction with transdisciplinary and holistic principles, using as a base innovation concepts. This paper will display an overview on concepts and approaches about sustainability impact assessment, but looking from a transversal perspective, passing by an historical description on impact assessment and on concepts related to sustainable development and sustainability. We will search for unedited models of sustainability impact systems by converging holism, transdisciplinarity and sustainability. There are several methodologies but few demonstrate an integrated view with a transversal perspective. It is also imperceptible any concrete governance-managerial system for sustainability impact assessment, considering every stage of the process, from a strategic to an operational level, including, analyzing environment, economy and society dimensions as one unique perspective. Such as a complex and multidimensional sector of economy, agricultural research requires profiled sustainability impact assessment with an innovative and dynamic approach.


Author(s):  
Vijayan Gurumurthy Iyer

Abstract Sustainable social entrepreneurship (SSE) is a kind of entrepreneurship that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability, efficiency and values of future generations to meet their own needs. SSE leads to sustainable development. Social entrepreneurs were developed through well-conceived and well directed training programmes around thrust areas, thus advancing the frontiers of theories and practice SSE. The concept of SSE challenges that fosters long-term protection of the society, environment and its habitants as the technological or engineering developments are guided by efficiency, productivity, profitability, health and environmental impacts, resource and energy conservation, waste management, and social impacts such as public convenience, unemployment and crime. The specific objectives of this research were: (i) To formulate and appraise forty-three number of detailed project reports (DPRs) of Diploma in Entrepreneurship and Business Management (DEBM ) course extension learners in eleven batches attached with the DEBM Counsellor and Co- ordinator of Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India -Ahmedabad (EDI),India as well author of this research during the research year (RY) 2007-2014 , (ii) To conduct social impact assessment and environmental health impact assessment (EHIA) for projects , (iii) To design and develop a comprehensive and green economic system modelling and (iv) To promote sustainable socio- economic policies of SIA process for an efficient socio- economic transformation development based on social entrepreneurial research conducted in South India . The design of the study is cross sectional. SIA is defined as the systematic identification and evaluation of the potential social impacts of proposed projects, plans, programs, policies or legislative actions relative to the socio- economic components of the society and total environment. Social factor has been considered in project planning and decision-making process in order to arrive at action which should be socio-economically compatible. Environmental health impact assessment process has been conducted in order to mitigate the environmental health impacts. Socio-economic environment is a man-made environment related to a set of considerations such as demographical study including population trends and population distribution , population interaction and interrelation to the social problem and solution, economic indicators of human welfare services, educational systems, transportation systems, environmental protective infrastructural facilities such as water supply system, waste water treatment system, solid and hazardous waste management, resource conservation and recovery process, environmental public health services and medical facilities. Social impact assessment process should be enacted as social policy act in order to encourage the considerations of human society in project planning and decision making process . Extension learners were equipped with the knowledge, skills and motivation to set up their sustainable social enterprises and function dynamically and manage successfully. DPRs proposed by learners have been investigated as per guidelines provided by EDI. Entrepreneurial business planning assessment regimes (EBPARs) have been accomplished for their credibility and communicability. DEBM projects were screened for the seven fatal flaws viz., (i) Scientific feasibility, (ii) technical feasibility, (iii) economic feasibility, (iv) marketing feasibility, (v) environmental feasibility, (vi) social feasibility and (vii) fundamental legality. Social entrepreneur of an entrepreneurial team should need skills in ethics, accounting, law, finance, team creation and marketing aspects in order to avoid failures in the process. The result analysis of forty- three learners has been discussed. Based on comprehensive socio-economic analysis, a green socio-economic system model has been presented. A famous project case of a DPR-I has been presented on unsafe chromium pollution and contamination of about 18 000 to 30 000 mg/kg from Indian cotton roller ginneries and development of green design roller gin rollers for cotton gins duly investigated in a ginning factory. Such low-carbon and energy-efficient agricultural technologies of agricultural hi-tech industries have made important contributions to mitigating the impacts of economic growth on global warming. Hitherto state-of-the- art literatures, market effects have been considered. It is reported that non-market impacts such as social and environmental impact assessment should be considered for proposed projects, plans, programs, policies and legislative action. It is concluded that this action-based and extension learning field study on SSE shall promote sustainable socio-economic policies for sustainable development and poverty alleviation. Keywords: action, efficient, entrepreneurship, environmental impact assessment process, project, social impact assessment (SIA) process, transformation.


2006 ◽  
Vol 08 (03) ◽  
pp. 341-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
THEOPHILUS HACKING ◽  
PETER GUTHRIE

The established approach to impact assessment is baseline-led, whereby the conditions that are likely to prevail in the absence of a proposed initiative are used as the "benchmarks" for determining the significance of impacts. Proponents of sustainable development (SD) criticise this approach for being directionless since it is based on extrapolating the past with no clear vision of what should be achieved in the future. Establishing objectives by which SD can be defined is one of the greatest challenges in the development of objectives-led assessment, especially since there is still so little consensus regarding exactly what SD entails. This paper explores a number of methods for establishing SD objectives based on a literature review and the analysis of case studies.


2001 ◽  
Vol 03 (03) ◽  
pp. 395-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
NORMAN LEE ◽  
COLIN KIRKPATRICK

In the build-up to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Meeting in November 1999, and its aftermath, considerable interest has been expressed in the likely economic, environmental and social effects of trade liberalisation on sustainable development. This article explores the methodological challenges which are faced when undertaking a sustainability impact assessment (SIA) at different stages in multilateral trade negotiations. The article draws upon the authors' experiences when undertaking a preliminary SIA in advance of the proposed WTO New Round, and explores how the methodology used might need to be elaborated for use in later stages of the negotiating process. Given existing methodological deficiencies and data shortages, it points to some of the dangers in being over-ambitious and proposes, as an interim solution, the more detailed and specific application of "simpler" methods already in use.


Author(s):  
Eagilwe M. Segosebe

The desire to protect the natural environment and the resources it hosts is at the core of every country's ambition to achieve long-term sustainable development. Yet, the history of development shows that environmental protection always came about as an after the fact activity. Nations around the world, including the industrial countries, most of the time reacted to adverse impacts of the environment rather than acting proactively to prevent undesirable outcomes of development. The 1970s decade is seen as a watermark in the development of legislation aimed at protecting the environment particularly in the developed world. This development and requirement to have projects subjected to environmental impact assessments spread to developing countries like Botswana in the 1980s. Botswana embraced the ideal to protect the environment to achieve sustainable development. Toward this end, the government of Botswana carried out Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on major projects voluntarily, even before the passing of the maiden EIA Act of 2005 and its supplement of 2011 and accompanying guidelines in 2012. After this and particularly in the 1990s, Botswana rigorously pursued its position on the international terrain where the country signed and ratified some international conventions and protocols. This chapter concludes by suggesting that the next area of focus for Botswana is on monitoring the outcomes of projects for which EIAs have been conducted.


Author(s):  
Eagilwe M. Segosebe

The desire to protect the natural environment and the resources it hosts is at the core of every country's ambition to achieve long-term sustainable development. Yet, the history of development shows that environmental protection always came about as an after the fact activity. Nations around the world, including the industrial countries, most of the time reacted to adverse impacts of the environment rather than acting proactively to prevent undesirable outcomes of development. The 1970s decade is seen as a watermark in the development of legislation aimed at protecting the environment particularly in the developed world. This development and requirement to have projects subjected to environmental impact assessments spread to developing countries like Botswana in the 1980s. Botswana embraced the ideal to protect the environment to achieve sustainable development. Toward this end, the government of Botswana carried out Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on major projects voluntarily, even before the passing of the maiden EIA Act of 2005 and its supplement of 2011 and accompanying guidelines in 2012. After this and particularly in the 1990s, Botswana rigorously pursued its position on the international terrain where the country signed and ratified some international conventions and protocols. This chapter concludes by suggesting that the next area of focus for Botswana is on monitoring the outcomes of projects for which EIAs have been conducted.


Author(s):  
Lorenz M. Hilty ◽  
Ruth Meyer ◽  
Thomas F. Ruddy

Traffic comprises a large and persistently growing share of resource consumption and environmental stress in modern economies. Even on our way towards an Information and Knowledge Society, the demand for physical transport has not let up. Although the total physical mass transported is no longer increasing in modern economies, the distances and exchange frequencies still are, both in freight and in passenger traffic. That is making traffic with its effects on the environment into one of the most difficult problems that has to be solved if we want to attain sustainable development.


2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clive George ◽  
Colin Kirkpatrick

Sustainability Impact Assessment is increasingly being used as a tool for assessing the consequences for sustainable development of international trade agreements. While theoretically, Sustainability Impact Assessment can make trade agreements more sustainable, in practice, difficulties are encountered in integrating the assessment findings into decision-making.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (10) ◽  
pp. 25-37
Author(s):  
Alexander N. Danilov

The article discusses the meanings of life and value priorities of the post- Soviet society. The author argues that, at present, there are symptoms of a global ideological crisis in the world, that the West does not have its own vision of where and how to move on and has no understanding of the future. Unfortunately, most of the post-Soviet countries do not have such vision as well. In these conditions, there are mistrust, confusion, paradoxical manifestation of human consciousness. The main meanings that determine our life-world are: the desire of citizens for social justice and social security, the desire to figure out and understand the basic values of modern society, how honestly and equally the authorities act toward their fellow citizens, and to what extent they reflect their interests. The meanings of life, which are the answers to the challenges of the time, are embodied in the cultural code of each nation, state. The growth points of new values, which will become the basis for the future sustainable development of a new civilization, have yet to be discovered in the systemic transformative changes of the culture. In this process, the emergence of a new system of values that governs human life is inevitable. However, modern technology brings new troubles to humans. It has provided wide opportunities for informational violence and public consciousness manipulation. Nowadays, the scenario that is implemented in Western consumer societies claims to be the dominant scenario. Meanwhile, today there is no country in the world that is a role model, there is no ideal that others would like to borrow. Most post-Soviet states failed to advance their societies to more decent levels of economic development, to meet the challenges of the modern information age, and to provide the population with new high living standards. Therefore, in conditions of growing confrontation, we should realistically understand the world and be ready to implement changes that will ensure sustainable development of the state and society without losing our national identity.


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