The environmental impact assessment has contributed to minimizing the negative impact as an institutional device to anticipate the environmental impact of development projects and to take mitigation measures. However, the reliability of the results of...
The environmental impact assessment has contributed to minimizing the negative impact as an institutional device to anticipate the environmental impact of development projects and to take mitigation measures. However, the reliability of the results of the environmental impact assessment is constantly problematic due to the insufficient investigation of the status in the evaluation report and the failure to prepare the evaluation report, which is causing huge social costs. To solve this problem, there have been many efforts such as amendment of legal regulations and development of guidelines, but there has been no clear effect. Therefore, in order to restore credibility, the government has designated the introduction of the environmental impact assessment depositary system as one of the top 100 national affairs, and it is time for urgent institutional change in line with this.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the root cause of the question, “Why is the reliability of the environmental impact assessment question doubted?”, and to analyze the necessity of the whole system reform to improve it. In addition, in relation to the introduction of the so-called “depositary system” proposed as a national task, we proposed the direction of concrete system improvement such as the necessity and effect analysis of the introduction of the system and the main issues in the introduction, and the possibility.
The fundamental problems identified in this study are that ‘the issue of fairness and trust in the procedure’ of writing the environmental impact assessment report resulted from the lack of environmental consciousness of the business operator, and ‘the issue of the environment assessment agency system’ under which securing of independence of subcontractor is difficult by ‘boss-subordinate relationships’ between evaluation agencies. This can be reexamined as the maximization of the superiority and profit creation of the operator. To solve this problem, it is necessary to calculate the agency cost including the appropriate investigation cost. The current operating system and various improvement measures actively proposed are compared and examined. In the case of the introduction of the depository system or the appointment of the depository management agency, the evaluation was relatively low, and the establishment of a specialized depository agency involved in the whole evaluation procedure was found to be superior in terms of implementation and operation of fair environmental impact assessment. However, since the alternatives include the advantages and disadvantages of each, it is necessary to establish a plan to maximize the improvement effect by setting up a convergent alternative.
When introducing the deposit system, it is judged that it can not be succeeded by only handling the cost deposit. Therefore, this study presented the basic principles that should be reflected in the introduction of deposit agents. To establish a dedicated organization capable of carrying out a neutral role, to merge with the work of calculating the appropriate evaluation agency expenses, to simplify the unnecessary and redundant environmental impact assessment procedure in the current system, to switch to the win-win system between stakeholders, and to guarantee the professionalism and independence of evaluation agencies are principles that should be basically reflected. And the establishment of an environmental impact assessment agency(dedicated management agency) capable of performing a neutral role is an effective and convergent measure.
Specialized management agencies will participate in all stages of the environmental impact assessment and will improve economic effectiveness by reducing time and cost expenditure and improve the reliability of environmental impact assessment by breaking down the dependency between the operator and evaluation agency. It is also expected to lead environmental experts and improve the quality of environmental impact assessment system.
The improvement of this system is a matter that requires a lot of financial and time efforts, so it is considered that mid- to long-term implementation will be necessary. Therefore, in the short term, it would be desirable to use the existing neutral organization to operate the bidding system as a function of the bidding agent and to calculate the appropriate agency cost. Although it may be difficult to improve and adjust due to the complex interdependence of each factor, efforts should be made to ensure fairness through overall inspection and improvement of the system for the objective and reliable environmental impact assessment system.