Governance & Policy

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)

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Definition

Strategic environmental assessment is the systematic evaluation of the environmental — and often social and health — consequences of proposed policies, plans and programmes, conducted while alternatives are still open, before they are approved. Codified in the UNECE SEA Protocol (Kiev Protocol) and the EU SEA Directive (2001/42/EC), it extends impact assessment upstream from projects to the decisions that generate them.

References

Source organisationSupporting reference

This reference provides supporting context for how “Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)” is defined and used.

environment.ec.europa.euBulk import source

Source imported for editorial provenance.

Overview

How it is used

SEA is mandatory for specified plans in the EU, applied in development cooperation for policy and programme lending, and recommended by the OECD for sustainability appraisal of strategies.

Why it matters

SEA is impact assessment's upstream half: the instrument that asks "should this pattern exist at all?" before asking "how do we mitigate it?"