Decision making process

Name der Fallstudie
Strategic Environmental Assessment(SEA)in Copenhagen
Strategische Umweltprüfung (SUP)in Kopenhagen

Decision making process - stages
The first SEA-procedure
A set of guidelines for sustainability assessment was developed by the Municipality?s Forum for Environmental Assessment. These guidelines should be used by each department in the Municipality, to assess the potential environmental impacts of the law-proposal and recommendations they put forward.

This suggested that an SEA-assessment should follow thre steps:
1. An assessment of whether the suggestion will have any environmental impact at all,
2. (if yes) an assessment of the environmental impacts,
3. A summary.

The guidelines emphasize that impacts can have different dimensions: Direct, indirect or derived, temporal (temporal, lasting, short-term and long-term), geographical (local, regional and global) or negative consequences.

A checklist to support the assessment was made. It operates with 9 environmental themes: Resources, waste, air, noise, water (groundwater, sewage, surface-water), soil, green areas, traffic, risk in production, and health. For each theme a fact sheet on the Municipality?s policy has been made, summarizing goals and principles, assessment criteria?s, central documents, and contacts for support. To limit the number of assessments to be made, a "negative list" was produced, defining the type of proposals for which an assessment should not be made.

There is a wide variety of assessments made, and the extent it has had any influence on the decision-making process.

Evaluation of the first SEA-procedure
The hitherto procedure has been evaluated by COWI consultants in 2002. This included the experiences from using the guidelines, how the environment is incorporated in the proposals, and resources (time) spent on the assessments. The evaluation showed that there is generally a positive attitude from the different departments in the Municipality for working with environmental assessment. In some departments (such as the Department of Building and Technique and the Department of Environment and Supply), environmental aspects play a major role, in others (such as the Department of Culture- and Leisure and the Department of Family and Labour market) a limited role. This also reflects the time spent on the assessments, which varied from 15 minutes to 4 hours (with an average of 30 minutes).

The main problems identified were:
? The aim and the target group for the assessments were unclear
? Unclear ambition level of the assessment in the guidelines
? Ambiguous concept of environment in the guidelines and tools
? Lack of attention on environmental assessment
? Long process

This revealed a need to simplify the assessments, and make them more oriented for the politicians, as the primary target group.

The second SEA-procedure
Based on the evaluation, following changes made the version of the SEA-procedure:
? A screening of environmental impacts for different types of acts will be made using external consultants. This will develop into a "positive list" for each department, that describes the types of acts that must be included in the SEA- assessment instead of operating with the " negative list" for cases that should not be included,
? The assessment will refer to relevant existing environmental goals. It must clearly state whether the proposal will have positive, neutral or negative environmental impacts on the politically agreed goals. If the proposal cannot be related to a goal, it will be discussed with the EPA how to assess the proposal.

The aim is to make the assessment very simple, so that it presents as clear a message as possible for politicians in committees.

Decision making process - levels
The tool is implemented in the initial stages (assessment of law proposals and plans)and the assessment is made by technicians, to support political decisions.

Decision making process - sources of information
Information letters, brochures and meetings were the sources of information used during the decision making process. This was distributed to the individual departments in Copenhagen municipality (Economy, Education and Youth, Health, Family- and Labour, Culture and Leisure, Building and Technique, Environment and Supply).

Decision making process - who are the decision makers
The municipal politicians are the decision makers.

Decision making process - who made the final decision for project implementation
The municipal politicians made the final decision on how to implement SEA in the municipality.

Name of tool
SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment)

Decision making process - tools in decision-making process
The tool is implemented in the initial stages (assessment of law proposals and plans). The assessment is made by technicians, to support political decisions.</p> <p> It is too early to say how much the SEA-procedure will influence the decision-making processes. In the 4th quarter of 2002, 228 assessments were carried out, corresponding to 62% of the 366 proposals put forward (Copenhagen Municipality’s Green Accounts 2002). </p> <p>Example<br> One example of a positive influence is the renovation of Brønshøj Torv (square). This served as a test-case for the new environmental policy for the Department of Roads and Parks. This case included use of different tools: The SEA-procedure, the municipality´s guidelines for environmental friendly renovation, and the national tool, "Manual on Environmental Management in Project Design" (MEMPD. In Danish: "Miljørigtig Projektering"). The renovation of the square included the following environmental initiatives:<br> • Reusing the existing granite-stones from the "old" square on the new square,<br> • Recycling concrete at the site (crushing it and using it for filling behind stairs),<br> • Cut trees will be reused in the playground,<br> • Rainwater from the square will be fed to the local village pond (traditionally, groundwater would have been used for this purpose, but groundwater resources are limited in the region. Using rainwater locally gives an environmental benefit for groundwater as well as for the sewage treatment).</p> <p> Approximately 160 environmental goals in the Municipality are used as benchmarks for assessing the environmental impacts.</p> <p> It is too early to identify if the tool can be used to support argumentations.</p>

Decision making process - how was the information for the dmp disseminated
Information letters, brochures and meetings were the sources of information used during the decision making process. This was distributed to the individual departments in Copenhagen municipality (Economy, Education and Youth, Health, Family- and Labour, Culture and Leisure, Building and Technique, Environment and Supply).

Decision making process - how was the public involved
So far, little consideration has been made about involving citizens and stakeholders in the SEA-procedure.

Decision making process - was there public discussion over the project
There was no public discussion over the project.

Welche Tools wurden verwendet, um Nachhaltigkeit zu beurteilen?

SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment)

Weiterführende Informationen (nur auf Englisch):

Für den vollständigen Bericht hier klicken (pdf)