PRELIMINARY ENVIRONMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT - NEW HIGHLIGHTS IN THE LAW ON ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 2020

For the purpose of economic development and environmental protection, Preliminary Environment Impact Assessment is assigned to minimize adverse impact on environment and ensuring labor health

1. What is the preliminary environmental impact assessment?

Preliminary environmental impact assessment refers to consideration and identification of key environmental matters of the investment project in the pre-feasibility study phase or proposal phase of project launch.

2. Entities which need to conduct preliminary environmental impact assessment:

The entities required to conduct the preliminary environmental impact assessment include investment project subject to Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIA) entities specified at Appendix II, Section I of Appendix issued under the Decree No. 40/2019/ND-CP of the Government dated 13 May 2019 on amending and supplementing a number of Articles of the Decrees on detailing and guiding the implementation of the Law on Environmental Protection, subject to one of following circumstances:

a) Public investment project (excluding emergency public investment projects, projects under the national target programs, components under the Project that the authorities have approved its investment guidelines, investment preparation tasks and planning tasks);

b) Public Private Partnership (PPP) investment project;

c) Investment project subject to investment guideline approval as prescribed by the law on investment;

d) Investment project subject to the Investment Registration Certificate, excluding issuance of Investment Registration Certificate at the request of the investor.

3. Date of preliminary environmental impact assessment

Preliminary environmental impact assessment is initiated in the PRE-FEASIBILITY STUDY phase for construction investment, investment guideline proposal, proposal on approving investment guidelines for the investment project subject to the cases of decision or approval of investment guidelines as prescribed by the law on investment, public investment and PPP, construction investment.

4. Contents of preliminary environmental impact assessment

a) Conformity assessment of investment project site with the National Environmental Protection Strategy, National Environmental Protection Plan, contents of environmental protection in the regional & provincial plans and other related plans;

b) Identification and forecast of the investment project’s key environment impacts for the environment in accordance with the project scale, production technology and site;

c) Identification of environmental sensitivity factors of the project site by site options (if any);

d) Analysis, evaluation and selection of options on scale, production technology, waste treatment technology, investment project site and mitigation measures of environmental impacts;

đ) Identification of key environmental matters and scope of environment impacts to be noted during EIA is initiated.

5. Implementation and consideration of preliminary environmental impact assessment contents

EIA is initiated by the proposer of investment project subject to clause 1, Article 3 of the Decree No. 40/2019/ND-CP during the FS report, proposal report on investment guidelines, request for approving the investment guidelines, application for issuing Investment Registration Certificate

Preliminary EIA contents are considered with appraisal of request for the project’s investment guideline decision or approval, issuance of Investment Registration Certificate as prescribed by the law on public investment under PPP, investment and construction method.

6. Legal foundations

The Law on Environmental Protection dated 23 June 2014

The Law on Environmental Protection dated 17 November 2020;

The Decree No. 54/2021/ND-CP dated 21 May 2021

Source: NGO