Environmental assessments and sustainable finance frameworks: will the EU Taxonomy change the mindset over the contribution of EIA to sustainable development?

IF 1.8 4区社会学 Q3 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal Pub Date : 2022-01-18 DOI:10.1080/14615517.2022.2027609

J. Dusík, A. Bond

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引用次数: 21

Abstract

ABSTRACT Environmental Assessment is a globally mandated tool for helping to deliver sustainable development, yet decision makers frequently use it to legitimise trade-offs between socio-economic gains and environmental losses. As a result, environmental assessment is frequently criticised for its inability to prevent incremental environmental degradation. However, new frameworks stipulating what can be deemed as ‘sustainable investment’ or ‘sustainable economic activity’ for financing under sustainable finance frameworks are being developed. These are known as taxonomies of sustainable investments, and they have the potential to radically change the environmental outcomes of decision making, based on a ‘significant contribution’ and ‘do no significant harm’ approach to critical environmental components. We illustrate how they can change the mindset for the sustainable development expectations associated with policy tools like environmental assessment. Further, we demonstrate that emerging taxonomies can benefit from integration with existing environmental assessment systems. Conversely, an appropriate use of taxonomies of sustainable investments in environmental assessment systems can further strengthen the existing EA systems and allow them to better address the environmental sustainability priorities of the 21st century.

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环境评估和可持续融资框架:欧盟分类法会改变人们对环境影响评估对可持续发展贡献的看法吗?

环境评估是帮助实现可持续发展的全球授权工具，但决策者经常使用它来合法化社会经济收益和环境损失之间的权衡。因此，环境评价经常被批评无法防止环境的不断恶化。然而，正在制定新的框架，规定什么可以被视为“可持续投资”或“可持续经济活动”，以便在可持续金融框架下融资。这些被称为可持续投资分类法，它们有可能从根本上改变决策的环境结果，基于对关键环境成分的“重大贡献”和“不造成重大损害”的方法。我们说明了它们如何改变与环境评估等政策工具相关的可持续发展期望的心态。此外，我们证明了新兴的分类法可以从与现有环境评估系统的整合中受益。相反，在环境评估系统中适当使用可持续投资分类可以进一步加强现有的环境评估系统，使它们能够更好地处理21世纪的环境可持续性优先事项。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES-

CiteScore

4.60

自引率

22.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： This is the international, peer-reviewed journal of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA). It covers environmental, social, health and other impact assessments, cost-benefit analysis, technology assessment, and other approaches to anticipating and managing impacts. It has readers in universities, government and public agencies, consultancies, NGOs and elsewhere in over 100 countries. It has editorials, main articles, book reviews, and a professional practice section.