Abstract
Abstract : This study addresses the criticism that environmental impact assessment in South Africa, may pose a threat to achieving the development objectives of the National Development Plan, thereby impacting on the ability of the country to deal with the challenges of poverty, inequality and joblessness. The purpose of this study is to identify possible contributions that implementing sector specific Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) can make to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the project-level impact assessment process, using the renewable energy sector as a pilot. The experience of implementing the energy SEAs will be used to enhance the existing SEA design criteria to enable SEAs to be more easily utilised by the government to influence decision-making and contribute to sustainable development. Possible successes in this sector could translate to other sectors and improve the ability to meet the countries development objectives while promoting sustainability. The energy focus of this study relates to the global concern relating to the impacts of climate change and the commitment of the South African government to transition the country towards a low carbon economy. As part of realising this objective, renewable energy technologies are being advanced through the implementation of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REI4P). This programme, which is based on competitive bidding, will see 17.8 GW of renewable energy introduced into the energy mix by 2030. As a pre-bid requirement, prospective bidders must undertake a project level Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and be in possession of an Environmental Authorisation. This requirement resulted in over 900 applications for environmental authorisation being submitted for consideration for the first phase of bidding, of which only 9% proceeded to construction. These statistics point to inefficiencies within the procurement and authorisation processes and highlights the need to move to a strategic approach when implementing large scale priority development projects. Data gathering included the review and evaluation of four commercial scale wind-energy environmental impact assessments and two energy sector strategic environmental assessments against previously researched EIA and SEA effectiveness criteria. This research contributes to the debate on the effectiveness of SEA with an emphasis on designing SEAs for implementation. The research would be of interest to environmental practitioners, government and scholars of integrated environmental management.
D.Phil. (Geography)