The Role of Environmental Management Systems in Enforcing Standards and Thresholds in the Context of EIA Follow-Up

he effectiveness of Environmental Assessment (EA) depends on its ability to effect change in the way human activities impact the environment. Unfortunately, environmental professionals are all too familiar with a gap between protecting the environment ‘on paper’ (e.g. in the EIS and related documents) and destroying it ‘on the ground’ where the activities undergoing EA are implemented. To bridge this gap, EIA follow up contains the management component defined as “making decisions and taking appropriate action in response to issues arising from monitoring and evaluation activities” (Morrison-Saunder et al. 2003). Environmental Management Plans (EMPs) and Environmental Management Systems (EMS) are the main management tools which can improve EIA effectiveness during followup. This section considers the rationale for and the experience of using EMPs and EMS in the context of EIA and SEA with particularly attention to the role of standards and thresholds.