Strategic and Environmental Impact Studies Services
Such procedure, defined at European Community level by the 85/377/CEE Directive and the following 97/11/CE Directive, was implemented at national level through the Law 349/86, institutive of the Environment Ministry (nowadays Ministry of the Environment and the Safeguard of Territory and Sea), as well as through the DPCM 377/88 (typologies of works whose projects are subdued to VIA procedures) and the DPCM 27.12.1988 (structure and content of the environmental impact studies).
Subsequently, the DPR 12.04.1996, known as "Act of policy and coordination", fulfilled the implementation of the EC directives, regulating the EIA procedure for the works referred in the II Attachment to the 85/337/CEE Directive. Recently, the complete normative on EIA was rearranged through the Part II of the DLgs 152/06, known as Environment Decree.
The Environmental Impact Studies (EIS), as defined by the recent Environment Decree, constitute the technical-scientific tool which comprises the description and evaluation of the effects on the environment due to the realization and exercise of some determined categories of works. |
Such studies, nowadays structured according to the usual articulation in Programmatic, Planning and Environmental reference frameworks, take the shape of interdisciplinary instruments with the aim to communicate to relevant Authorities and involved populations, the nature of the effects on the environment caused by the work, and the measures the Proponent is willing to set in order to mitigate or reduce their entity.
The Environmental Impact Studies and their editing constitute one of the central issues in the EIA procedure, whose complexity comes from the number of actors, affairs and problems involved. ^^^
Consequently the judgment of environmental compatibility is not achieved through the EIS editing alone, but it needs a wider set of activities to perform before and during the procedure, fit to mediate such a composite ensemble of actors and interests involved.
In this perspective V.D.P. S.r.l. defined its own mission and the nature of its services, always aiming to combine the environment safeguard with the Proponent`s appeals, as it`s clearly documented by the number of approved studies.
Strategic Environmental Assessment
By the adoption of Directive 42/2001 /EC on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment, EU codified the Strategic Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes. The directive, in force since July 21, 2001, represented a historical landmark for European
Environmental Law.
The Directive`s fourth considered states that "Environmental assessment is an important tool for integrating environmental considerations into the preparation and adoption of certain plans and programmes which are likely to have significant effects on the environment in the Member States, because it ensures that such effects of implementing plans and programmes are taken into account during their preparation and before their adoption."
Thus the Directive acknowledges SEA the role of instrument for the achievement of environmental sustainability and, by setting it up as a process deeply integrated with planning and programming, translates it into a different way of planning/programming, not a mere evaluation step.
SEA was introduced in Italy years ago through some regional legislation (among whom credit has to be given to the pacemakers Toscana and Emilia-Romagna) and since July 31 2007 also at national level, by the enforcement of Digs 152/2006 setting rules on environment matter, which implemented the EU Directive and was later modified by Digs 4/2008.
Another important SEA`s sphere of application is linked to Structural Funds programming (Regulations 2007-2013), for which EU detected SEA as an essential instrument for ensuring environmental sustainability of programmes and plans admitted to Communitarian funding.