Introduction and principles - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 13

for Sustainable Development, A Better Quality of Life (DETR 1999a), with its four
objectives of:
1. social progress which recognizes the needs of everyone;
2. effective protection of the environment;
3. prudent use of natural resources; and
4. maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment.
To measure progress, the UK government has published a set of sustainable development
indicators, including a set of 15 key headline indicators (DETR 1999b). It also required a
high-level sustainable development framework to be produced for each English region
(see, for example, A Better Quality of Life in the South East (SEERA 2001)).
1.4 Changing perspectives on EIA
The arguments for EIA vary in time, in space and according to the perspective of those
involved . From a minimalist defensive perspective, developers, and possibly also some
parts of government, might see EIA as a necessary evil, an administrative exercise,
something to be gone through that might result in some minor, often cosmetic, changes to
a development that would probably have happened anyway. For the “deep ecologists” or
“deep Greens”, EIA cannot provide total certainty about the environmental consequences
of development proposals; they feel that any projects carried out under uncertain or risky
circumstances should be abandoned. EIA and its methods must straddle such
perspectives, partly reflecting the previous discussion on weak and strong sustainability.
EIA can be, and is now often, seen as a positive process that seeks a harmonious
relationship between development and the environment. The nature and use of EIA will
change as relative values and perspectives also change. EIA must adapt, as O'Riordan
(1990) noted:
One can see that EIA is moving away from being a defensive tool of the
kind that dominated the 1970s to a potentially exciting environmental and
social betterment technique that may well come to take over the 1990s…
If one sees EIA not so much as a technique, rather as a process that is
constantly changing in the face of shifting environmental politics and
managerial capabilities, one can visualize it as a sensitive barometer of
environmental values in a complex environmental society. Long may EIA
thrive.
EIA must also be re-assessed in its theoretical context, and in particular in the context of
decision-making theory (see Lawrence 1997, Weston 2000). EIA had its origins in a
climate of a rational approach to decision-making in the USA in the 1960s. The focus
was on the systematic process, objectivity, a holistic approach, a consideration of
alternatives and an approach often seen as primarily linear. This rational approach is
assumed to rely on a scientific process in which facts and logic are pre-eminent. In the
UK this rational approach was reflected in planning in the writings of, inter alia, Faludi
(1973), McLoughlin (1969), and Friend & Jessop (1977).