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The failures of EIA in ensuring sustainability should be evaluated against the very purposes of the impact assessments. According to the UN Environment, EIAs are tools used to identify the environmental, social, and economic impacts of a project before decision-making. The primary objective of EIAs is mitigating adverse ecological effects while at the same time enhancing the social and economic impacts.

Although nations are increasingly embracing environmental impact assessments (EIAs) to assist in decision making, some failures of the tool are apparent. We have outlined some potential causes for failures in the EIA process.

1.      EIAs prioritize infrastructural projects over the protection of the environment

The issues revolving around EIAs are rather complex. Although these tools are meant to address the need for environmental protection, they prioritize infrastructural development over the need to protect the ecosystems. Also, EIAs focus on mitigation measures instead of focusing on preventing environmental degradation and other possible harms on the environment. Moreover, EIAs don’t instill a sense of accountability in all the players involved in infrastructural projects. These project planning tools have been blamed for disrespecting local communities’ views in areas where projects are taking place.

2.      EIAs are mostly victims of divergent development ideologies 

In most nations worldwide, the approach taken by players during the construction of massive infrastructural projects has nothing to do with the specific measures needed to protect the ecosystems and livelihoods. That’s why EIAs are victims of divergent development ideologies. Although these tools are ideally supposed to put such divergent views into consideration, they fail to address these views amicably.

3.      Ineffective government institutions

Most nations have been putting in place requisite environmental frameworks that require EIAs for infrastructural and other mega projects. But in most countries, specifically third world nations, the governmental institutions that are tasked with protecting the ecosystems are ineffective.  Such weak institutions can’t always guarantee the implementation of EIAs. In such a situation, the agencies responsible for drafting EIAs can’t implement the necessary environmental mitigation measures, leave alone directing government institutions on the frameworks they should adopt in their quest to protecting the ecosystems.

4.      Failure to consult the local communities

For EIAs to comply with the international EIA guidelines, there should be consultations with the local communities where projects are intended to take place. But EIAs hardly focuses on effectively consulting the local communities. As such, the locals are left with no understanding of how a specific project will affect their lives. Even when there are minimal consultations, the way participation and consultation are done during the EIA processes leaves the locals feeling that they have no say in the projects been undertaken.

5.      Lack of capacity to conduct EIAs.

A common failure among all EIAs worldwide is a palpable lack of capacity. The problem is particularly pronounced in third world nations.  As such, these nations cannot conduct thorough assessments per the EIA global standards. Even for companies that purport to have the expertise required to produce a professional EIA, these companies only have theoretical expertise. This problem is compounded by the fact that even the governmental bodies that are tasked with implementing EIAs lack the requisite knowledge to conduct proper environmental assessments. Worse still, most institutions lack funding from the state and other environmental organizations to hire professionals to conduct appropriate environmental checks before embarking on infrastructural projects.

In countries like Kenya, the proponent pays a consultant to conduct the EIA. In most cases, the consultant has the priority of ensuring that the project sails through, instead of preventing adverse environmental impacts.

6.      Political interference

Although governments have enacted legislation that emphasizes on the significance of EIAs, there lacks the political goodwill to implement these project tools. Instead, political interference continues to affect EIAs adversely.  The political class in most countries tends to sabotage EIA since they are the ones who are awarded notable development projects.  That means that once the developers are awarded contracts, they endeavor to complete it and get paid billions without caring about the environmental repercussions that the projects will have. Without political goodwill and respect for EIA processes worldwide, EIAs will not be effective.

7.      Lack of public participation in EIA processes

The seventh point relates to the first point.

According to EIA experts, a common problem that is attributed to the failure of EIAs is the lack of public participation. This problem is chiefly because the project developers endeavor to avoid additional costs and delays involved with public participation. Moreover, the greater majority of the public has little or no understanding of EIAs. Even when developers organize for public meetings to discuss both ongoing and proposed projects, the attendance is dismal since the public isn’t concerned about the effects that the projects will have on the ecosystems. Besides, EIA reports are so complicated, and hence most members of the public can’t understand them. Governments should promote public awareness of EIA and foster debate on all the proposed infrastructural projects to address the issue of lack of public participation in EIA meetings.       

8.      Interference by developers

Project developers view EIAs as unpopular procedures that only work to derail the implementation of projects and further increase the costs of projects. EIA practitioners face plenty of interference from developers who think that these practitioners are there to do ridiculous tasks. Furthermore, developers hardly see EIA reports as something worth the paper. To ensure EIAs remain effective, it is imperative to counter the interference from developers. Governments should invest money in educating the masses on the significance of these project tools. They shouldn’t allow these tools to remain at the mercy of developers, who are the biggest stumbling block to EIAs

9.      Lack of continued improvements on EIA processes

EIA stakeholders aren’t always reading from the same script. They don’t work on improving the current EIA processes but instead continue to utilize the same outdated processes. Although there are structural limitations in EIA processes, there is dire need to invest in more updated processes to investigate more advanced environmental mitigation measures.

10. Poor quality of EIAs

Most EIA processes don’t match international standards. Some of them omit valuable information. Moreover, they take some serious environmental impacts for granted. For instance, EIAs don’t highlight the importance of monitoring systems to counter the vibration and noise from large machinery used on massive projects.

Poor quality EIA is a cumulation of the other nine factors in this essay. What is more depressing is the observation that some consultants copy-paste EIA reports and environmental audits.

Conclusion

The article highlights the generic failures of EIA process in the world. Different regions would have a combination of various shortcomings. Despite these failures attributed to EIAs, these tools are vital in promoting environmental protection and sustainability. The failures of EIAs do not mean that the tools are useless. Instead, governments and other institutions should shift their focus on rectifying the possible failures of EIAs.