Greening Growth through Strategic Environmental Assessment of Sector Reforms

Policy makers are under increasing pressure to deliver policies that not only foster employment and growth but also are environmentally sustainable. Green growth seeks for even more ambitious results where employment and growth are stimulated by technological and institutional changes arising from better environmental stewardship and adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. As green growth may become the growth paradigm for the 21st century, policy makers require policy tools for addressing this challenge. Strategic environmental assessment of policies (policy SEA) is one of these tools.

Policy SEA is an analytical and participatory approach for incorporating environmental, social, and climate change considerations in sector reforms.

Based mostly on results of the World Bank’s SEA Pilot Program (World Bank and others 2011), this note briefly discusses what policy SEA is, why policy SEA is needed in greening growth, when policy SEA could be applied, and who should be involved in policy SEA.Acknowledging that sector reform is a unique opportunity for major policy and institutional changes, the note argues for policy SEA as a proactive, systemic, and strategic approach that promotes environmental and social sustainability of growth-oriented reforms (green growth).

Authors:

Fernando Loayza (Senior Environmental Economist, World Bank); Daniel Slunge
(Environmental Economist, Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg);
Rob Verheem (Deputy Director, Netherlands Commission for Environmental
Assessment); and Anna Axelsson (Adviser, Swedish EIA Centre, Department for
Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences).