Ealuating nordic environmental impact assessment – part 2: Professional culture as an aid in understanding implementation

The article discusses the functioning of environmental impact assessment, EIA, in the Nordic countries by relating EIA to professional and organisational cultures in environmental management and planning. The Nordic experience can contribute to the understanding of EIA and to the movement towards widening the scope of impact assessment to the level of “policies, programmes and plans”. To understand and to learn by the Nordic experiences the wider systems context within which EIA is operating must be taken into account. EIA can not be understood in isolation. The article shows that the understanding of professional and organisational culture as part of the implementation structures is an urgent need to complement other types of evaluation.

Key words:

• evaluation
• environmental impact assessment
• implementation
• organisational culture
• professional culture
• strategic environmental assessment
• EIA
• SEA