South African Workshop Presentations
Two Visibility Workshops have been held on the 28 – 30 January 2010 and 2-4 March 2011 and a Partner & Training Workshop on the 15 – 22 March 2013.
2.1 Abstracts of South African Workshop (January 2010)
2.1.6 Biofuels: the role of Environmental and Social Impact Assessment and associated challenges
Presenter:
Greer Hawley
Coastal Environmental Services (CES)
The field of Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) is a process which identifies issues and impacts, assesses the significance of impacts using criteria, provides recommendations for mitigation and provides an objective opinion on the whether the remaining environmental impact of a project is acceptable. How the EISA is carried out is guided by International and national guidelines to be elaborated in the presentation.
The advent of Biofuel and Biofuel production has resulted in a number of challenges facing the Environment and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) field as it is associated with and number of highly complex and dynamic issues such as society and communities, land-use change, carbon stocks, sustainability, food security and overall life cycle assessment.
Coastal & Environmental Services (CES) have undergone a number of ESIA’s with particular respect to Biofuel production from food and non-food crops. As such, CES have had the opportunity to research some of the major issues and challenges facing ESIA in association with Biofuel agriculture and ethanol production and will report on some of these.
During the ESIA process of a case-study Biofuel project, two new specialist studies were identified as important elements of the impact assessment, namely a Carbon Stock Impact Assessment and a Life-cycle Impact Assessment. This presentation reports on the challenges and potential ways forward in terms of the assessment and scales of significance which need to be considered for future impact assessments.