Japan Considers System to Assess Environmental Strategies

The Japanese Ministry of the Environment has been holding study group meetings since August 2006 to devise a regulatory system for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). SEA is used to evaluate environmental policies, plans and programs related to large-scale projects during the strategic decision-making phase prior to project implementation.

While European and developing countries have been introducing SEA, the Japanese government included plans for building an SEA mechanism in the third Basic Environment Plan approved by the Cabinet on April 7, 2006.

The study group identified a lack of sufficient environmental implications in the prevailing environmental impact assessments conducted during the project implementation phase, and discussed how to incorporate environmental considerations into SEA.

Opinions of the study group members include: a) multiple options including "no action" should be investigated, and b) the amount of carbon dioxide emissions should be an item for environmental impact assessment.


http://www.env.go.jp/en/

Posted: 2007/04/16 07:04:29 AM
Japanese version