Why serve soup with a fork?: How policy coherence for development can link environmental impact assessment with the 2030 agenda for sustainable development

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2020.106477Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Domestic policy tools such as EIA are not always appropriate for SDG implementation.

  • Policy coherence for development (PCD) used as a methodology can link EIA to SDGs.

  • PCD can improve “normative effectiveness” of EIA.

  • Mexico is considered a representative case due to commitments to both SDGs and PCD.

  • The empirical study examines the proposed Caballo Blanco open-pit mine in Veracruz.

Introduction

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) re-focused development cooperation towards universal and transformative development with the purpose of meeting the socio-ecological needs of local communities while simultaneously addressing power imbalances in the global arena (Koff and Maganda, 2016, p. 96). Furthermore, the SDGs look beyond traditional linear development relationships by adopting an inclusive approach that promotes interconnectedness, partnerships and focus on complex interactions within and between development goals.

The ambition of this agenda is impressive. However, critics have correctly questioned whether appropriate policy methods and tools exist for the adequate implementation of transformative development (Martens, 2015). These challenges are even more significant given that the implementation of the SDGs falls to nation-states.

This is where the Sustainable Development Agenda must address one of its most important challenges, which is the focus of this article: “Can the transformative development promoted by the SDG's be achieved through the policy tools presently utilized by nation-states, such as environmental impact assessment?” In response to this question, this article will examine the use of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in Mexico. It is organized into six sections. Following the introduction, part two presents the article's methods. Part three introduces policy coherence for development (PCD), the conceptual approach through which EIA is examined. Part four (results) discusses EIA and the proposed Caballo Blanco mine in Veracruz State. This section is followed by a discussion of EIA through the lens of PCD. Finally, part six presents conclusions. In general, this research inquires whether EIA is coherent with the spirit and objectives of the SDGs or whether the implementation of environmental impact assessment in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is metaphorically comparable to serving soup with a fork.

This article addresses three key concepts: transformative development, environmental impact assessment and policy coherence for development. The first of these ideas, “transformative development” is the object of this study. Sustainable development paradigms have broadened in global development debates. According to the United Nations, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda) is a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” (United Nations, 2020) It acknowledges that addressing poverty is dependent on reducing global inequalities, mitigating climate change and preserving natural resources. It also promises to “leave nobody behind.” (United Nations, 2020) This agenda promotes transformative development as defined above. Scholars such as Fukuda-Parr (2016) have recognized this normative shift as a necessary response to the increasing complexity of contemporary challenges to sustainable development.

While the ambition of the SDGs is impressive, critics, such as Spangenberg (2017) have noted that the 2030 Agenda is characterized by numerous inherent incoherences. Scholars such as Le Blanc (2015), Nilsson and et al. (2018) have modelled policy analysis of the SDGs to highlight the presence of tradeoffs that characterize the 2030 Agenda and undermine the effort to promote transformative development. This analysis contends that policy approaches need to address these tradeoffs in order for the SDGs to achieve to their ambitious goals. At the domestic level, observers, such as Kirsop-Taylor and Hejnowicz (2020) have advocated for the establishment of hybrid agencies aimed at addressing nexus complexity. For these reasons, this article questions whether traditional policy approaches can be utilized to implement transformative development as promoted through the 2030 Agenda.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been chosen for this article because it represents one of the traditional policy tools utilized throughout the world to domestically promote sustainable development. EIA has also been incorporated in numerous international treaties, protocols and conventions including, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This underlines the relevance of EIA for the implementation of the SDGs. However, recent studies have addressed seeming limitations of EIA as a policy assessment tool. On one hand, supranational policy assessments, such as the Sustainable Development Goals Progress Reports, and the Global Sustainable Development Report (which is an assessment of the assessments in the progress reports) focus on national and regional headway towards achievement of the SDGs. The progress reports examine transformative development processes and results for each individual goal. The Global Sustainable Development Report goes further by identifying levers for the implementation of transformative development and progress adapting these levers for the promotion of the desired transformative development proposed by the SDGs. While these reports provide interesting guidelines, their macro-approaches require refinement. For example, the levers identified by the Global Sustainable Development Report include governance, economy and finance, individual and collective action, and science and technology. While these levers surely affect transformative development, it is unclear how to activate them through concrete domestic policy mechanisms. EIA could seemingly provide such clarity. However, experts on EIA as a policy assessment tool, such as Kolhoff et al. (2018) have noted how much discussion has focused on how to improve EIA capacity development while little consensus has been achieved on what to improve, thus establishing a lag in the evolution of EIA capacity development. Wilkins (2003) has illustrated how emphasis has been placed on eliminating subjectivity from EIA, instead claiming that subjectivity is a key attribute for the promotion of sustainability. These tendencies in fact, contribute to the seeming gap between supranational policy assessment tools used in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and domestic EIA.

In general, the literature on EIA has highlighted objectivity and implementation. One strand of the literature examines new techniques adopted to improve this policy/planning tool's effectiveness. Scholars in this field have in fact, introduced and examined new methodologies, instruments and technologies that have refined procedural approaches to EIA. For example, Scullion and et al. (2011) introduce remote sensing and Ladsat satellite data. Fujimori (2017) use Asia-Pacific Integrated Assessment/Computable General Equilibrium (AIM/CGE) to quantify Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). Another branch of this literature addresses EIA practices. For example, Cashmore and Richardson (2013) discuss power in relation to conflict and development, participation in EIA and the generation/use of knowledge in EIA (Cashmore and Richardson, 2013). Bidstrup (2017) identifies grey IA defined as “informal dialogue with IA practitioners that takes place before screening,” (p. 234) as a significant driver of the outcomes of formal impact assessment.

Recent discussions of EIA, however, have focused on its use as much as on methods. Loomis and Dziedzic's (2018) evaluation of EIA, identifies four dimensions of “effectiveness”: procedural (process structure and adherence to the policy), substantive (the effects of EIA on the decision-making process and outcomes), transactive (the financial and temporal costs of conducting EIA) and normative (the extent to which EIA meets its ideal purpose). The normative dimension is the most relevant to the implementation of the SDGs. Without clear purpose, methodological/technological advances in EIA can make little impact. Loomis and Dziedzic note that this dimension is one of the least developed in the literature on EIA, which is dominated by procedural studies (Loomis and Dziedzic, 2018: p. 30).

This is recognized in the scholarship on environmental impact assessment theory (Cashmore, 2004). Numerous studies examine the conceptualization of EIA. Morgon (2017) theorizes best practice in impact assessment with particular focus on knowledge diffusion and learning processes. Sanchez and Mitchell (2016) examine learning processes within impact assessment procedures in order to address failure to learn as a defining characteristic of EIA. These discussions are well-summarized by Retief (2010) through presentation of the following key questions: “Do we have a clear sense of the purpose of EIA, and what it comprises? What are we achieving through this process?” (p. 377).

If we accept that the 2030 Agenda acts as guidelines to nation-states for sustainable development strategies, then we can posit that EIA, like other policy tools should promote the transformative development that characterizes the SDGs. Due to its complexity however, transformative development requires a transversal normative commitment (Häbel, 2020) to sustainability in different policy arenas. This raises questions about EIA as an appropriate policy tool because of the aforementioned concerns over “normative effectiveness” or “sense of purpose.”

For this reason, this analysis introduces policy coherence for development (PCD) as a third key concept. In asking whether EIA can promote transformative development as defined by the SDGs, this article asks whether PCD can be applied to EIA in order to promote transformative development. PCD is considered one of the pillars of the 2030 Agenda and it is embedded in SDG 17 on “Strengthening the Means of Implementation and Revitalizing the Global Partnership.”

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), policy coherence for development is “an approach to integrate the dimensions of sustainable development throughout domestic and international policy-making. (OECD, 2019) PCD (since expanded to PCSD- policy coherence for sustainable development) addresses the trade-offs that characterize transformative development and promotes a “whole of government” approach to sustainable development policy-making. For this reason, this article inquires whether PCD could improve the normative effectiveness of EIA, thus making it a more appropriate tool for the domestic implementation of the SDGs.

Section snippets

Case selection: Mexico

Mexico has been chosen for this study because it can be considered a representative case for implementation of the SDGs. First, like many countries, Mexico has ratified important international environmental treaties, providing the country with a strong normative framework for environmental management. Mexico's constitutional architecture directly addresses sustainability as the Mexican Constitution (article 4, paragraph 5) states, “Every person has the right to a healthy environment for her

Theory: policy coherence for development and its relevance to EIA

EIA procedures exist in order to protect local communities from environmentally negligent or abusive practices. While environmental conservation is noble and necessary, it is not synonymous with transformative development as defined by the SDGs. Studies in this field, (see Koff and Maganda, 2019) indicate that public subsidies focused on conservation can increase the dependence of rural communities on government payments by restricting sustainable economic opportunities. The key to

Results: EIA and the proposed Caballo Blanco project

Mexico's mining activities go back 500 years. The country's mining industry generates important revenue, contributing 2.5% to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 8.3% to the industrial GDP. It also generates significant employment, creating 379,000 direct jobs and almost two million indirect jobs in 2018 (International Trade Administration, 2019). More significantly, Mexico receives the fourth largest amount of global foreign direct investment (FDI) for mining and the second most FDI

Discussion: can EIA promote transformative development through a PCD approach?

The preceding section illustrates many limits of EIA. This tool protects communities from social and environmental harm, but what does it promote? Can it facilitate transformative development as proposed by the SDGs? As stated above, research on EIA focuses strongly on procedural effectiveness. The aforementioned literature on EIA in Mexico highlights numerous procedural shortcomings in that country. The Caballo Blanco case is important because it is not characterized by these limitations. The

Conclusions

Environmental impact assessment has played an invaluable role in development governance. Obviously, it has provided criteria through which to understand the socio-economic impacts of projects, programs and strategies. It has also opened avenues for public participation in development planning and it has improved transparency. In general, EIA has buttressed environmental regulation and implanted environmental concerns in the general development consciousness.

Is it however, a tool whose time has

Funding

This work was supported by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), Mexico. [grant number 296842, 2018: “Uso de big data para la gestión ambiental del desarrollo sostenible (Integralidad Gamma)].

Credit author statement

As author of this article, Harlan Koff was responsible for all aspects of the manuscript including conceptualization, methodology, data collection, data analysis, investigation, validation, writing, reviewing and editing and visualization. As coordinator of the research team on policy coherence for development, Dr. Koff is responsible for supervision and project administration of research on PCD within the I-GAMMA project.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the RISC-RISE Consortium, CIDE-Aguascalientes, INECOL and UPIITA-IPN for the organization of conferences which provided valuable background information for this research. The author thanks Dr. Miguel Equihua, Dr. Octavio Perez-Maqueo, Dr. Arturo Hernández Huerta, Dr. Antony Challenger, Mtra. Julia Ros Cuellar and Eng. Israel Portillo Peralta for their input on EIA in Mexico.

Harlan Koff is Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Luxembourg and GAMMA-UL Chair in Regional Integration and Sustainability at the Instituto de Ecología (INECOL) in Xalapa, Mexico where he coordinates research on policy coherence for development. He is also Senior Research Associate in the Department and Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg with which he collaborates as Co-president of the Consortium for Comparative Research on Regional

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    Harlan Koff is Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Luxembourg and GAMMA-UL Chair in Regional Integration and Sustainability at the Instituto de Ecología (INECOL) in Xalapa, Mexico where he coordinates research on policy coherence for development. He is also Senior Research Associate in the Department and Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg with which he collaborates as Co-president of the Consortium for Comparative Research on Regional Integration and Social Cohesion-Social Elevation (RISC-RISE). He is co-editor of the scientific journal Regions & Cohesion (Berghahn Journals) and his research focuses on international development, migration, regional integration and sustainability.

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