Environmental appraisal of projects

Introduction
Environmental appraisal is the process of assessment of environmental effect or consequences of a
proposed project. Environmental appraisal of project consists of two key components:

1. Environmental report for approval or clearance

2. Sustainable growth of the firm

Any project requires environmental clearance for approval or licensing. The approach accounting for
the consideration beyond mere legal clearance is also appreciated in the present scenario. The
environmental appraisal of projects is carried out by following approaches, namely:-

1. Feasibility approach
a. Reactive approach
b. Proactive approach

Feasibility approach
In this approach, minimum environmental standards prescribed in the county are to be met. For
international companies, beyond environmental standards, company aims at achieving
environmental certification such as ISO 14000 (general industries) or LEED certification (building or
construction industries).

Reactive approach
Environmental impact assessment is carried out for the sole purpose of getting environmental
clearance.

Proactive approach
Environmental impact assessment is used as a tool to improve planning process, cost effective,
carbon credits, safety of work-place etc.

Legal Requirements
Government of India permits to carry out a project if and only if it satisfies or confirms to
‘Environmental Protection Act (1986).’ The clearance from Govt. of India is mandatory for new
projects as well as expansion or modernisation of existing projects. Environmental Impact
assessment notification published in 2006 declares the partial decentralization by implementing EIA
agency and environmental expert committee at central and state level. The expert committee
evaluates the appraisal report by personal visit and public notification. The regulatory authority
gives the clearance within 105 days of receipt of final EIA. The biannual compliance report of EIA of
project is expected to submit to the authority for post clearance monitoring.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Stages

Screening: Screening determines the requirement of the project to be assessed for EIA.

Scoping: Scoping identifies the key issues and its impacts.

Impact Analysis: Impact analysis identifies likely environmental and social impact.

Mitigation: Mitigation recommends the actions to be taken to reduce the potential adverse
environmental consequences.

Reporting: It presents the results of EIA.

Review: Review examines the adequacy and effectiveness of EIA.

Beyond Legal Requirements

The major aspects or significance of the environmental appraisal of the project other than legal
requirements are

1. Meeting higher standards

2. Eco-preneurship
3. Carbon financing

Meeting higher standards

The popular methods of meeting higher standards are

a. ISO 14000 certification

b. Green Project rating (GRP)
c. Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
d. Indian Green Building Council Certification
e. LEED rating

ISO 14000 provides environmental management standards to help organisations to minimize the
negative impact of their projects to environment. In 2000, there were about 257 Indian companies
certified with ISO 14000, it is increased to 2016 companies in 2006. The economic benefits of ISO
14000 certification aimed modification in production plant are reduction in waste, innovations in
process management etc.

Green rating Project (GRP) is constituted by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), GoI. GRP
is an initiative to rate the industrial units on the basis of environment friendliness. According to the
environmental friendliness approaches implemented, industrial units are classified into five
categories in the GREEN LEAF SCALE. The reputation is the incentives for GRP.

The mission of Global reporting Initiative (GRI) is to make sustainable reporting standard
practice for all organisations. GRI initiate in participate, communicate and report the sustainable
development practices initiative. Only 13 companies from India take the advantages of GRI in 2011.

The certification from Indian Green Building Council is another approach of meeting higher
standards. Green buildings use less energy, water and natural resources, creates less waste and is
healthier compared to standard buildings

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification is based on six domains

(1) Sustainable site

(2) Water efficiency
(3) Energy and atmosphere
(4) Material and resources
(5) Indoor environment quality
(6) Innovative in operations

In LEED certification procedure, the building is certified in four categories namely,

‘CERTIFICATION’, ‘SILVER’, ‘GOLD’, and ‘PLATINUM’.

Eco-preneurship
It is a mix between ecological issues and entrepreneurship. Ecopreneurship is a term evolved to
represent the process that applies the principles of entrepreneurship to create businesses that solve
environmental problems. It is otherwise referred to as "environmental entrepreneurship." The term
began to be widely used in the 1990s.
E.g. – Wipro has developed new LED lamps with ¼th power consumption and also installed Solar
panels on roof.

Carbon Financing
The problem of global-warming and climate change lead to initiation of concept of carbon financing.
Kyoto Protocol (2005) gives the opportunity for carbon trading. The developing countries produce
carbon equivalent less than the prescribed limit, the balance amount of carbon equivalent can be
sold to developed country to compensate the overproduction beyond the prescribed limit.

Significance of Environmental Appraisal of Project

1. Environmental appraisal provides true account of real cost and benefit of the project.
Quantification of environmental impacts in the approval procedure will help to offset future
market failure and penalising the schemes with environmental costs. It helps to promote
environmental benefits
2. Environmental appraisal provides the adjustment factor to allow environmental depreciation in
the computation of national accounts like GNP, GDP etc. The adjusted GNP or GDP is more
accurate indicator of country’s development.
3. Environmental assessment helps to develop environmental policies through green pricing. In
developed countries size of environmental cost and benefits is also accounted in valuation of
taxes, subsidies, user charges etc.

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