This article will help you to differentiate between EIA and EMS.
Difference # EIA Processes:
1. The goal of an EIA is generally to provide environmental protection by ensuring that environmental factors are considered during the early planning process.
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2. The EIA process often lacks a legally binding substantive mandate to protect the environment.
3. A comprehensive environmental planning process is followed, but it typically lacks an environmental quality system for ensuring that the decisions are properly implemented.
4. A detailed formal “public scoping” process for identifying significant impacts and eliminating non-significant issues is generally specified.
5. Other environmental review processes and objectives such as pollution prevention measures, environmental justice, and biodiversity are either required to be integrated with EIA or may be done so voluntarily.
6. An analysis of “reasonably foreseeable” impacts over the “life cycle” of the action is typically required.
7. EIA processes often include detailed directions for performing an analysis of direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts.
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8. Many years of experience have been accumulated in the planning and analysis of significant environmental impacts through different EIA processes worldwide.
9. Specific factors for determining the significance of environmental impacts are frequently specified in the EIA guidance documents or other relevant regulations.
10. Mitigation measures are generally required to be identified and analysed as part of the EIA planning processes.
11. EIA processes frequently encourage (but infrequently require) post-monitoring measures.
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12. Most EIA processes lack a specific component for continually improving quality.
Difference # Consistent EMS:
1. ISO’s goal is to provide environmental protection by identifying impacts. Its continual improvement system is used to reduce these impacts.
2. Substantive actions are expected to be taken, which lead to continual improvement in environmental protection.
3. A planning function requires a system for ensuring that decisions are appropriately implemented. However, it does not prescribe a detailed process for performing the planning function.
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4. A procedure (not public) is required to record and respond to external parties, but it does not include specific steps for public involvement.
5. A top-level environmental policy is required, including an on-going commitment to preventing pollution, which is very broadly defined. The policy does not specifically address integration of the EMS with other laws and policies.
6. Details of how to perform a life-cycle analysis are described in the ISO 14040 series.
7. An investigation of “environmental aspects” is required. However, the requirements for performing this investigation generally lack specificity regarding scope or content.
8. This is a relatively new process. Only limited experience has been accumulated in the planning and analysis of significant environmental issues.
9. No detailed direction for interpreting or determining the meaning of “significance” is provided.
10. EMS provides a system for ensuring that mitigation measures are implemented during the operation of the project or policy.
11. Monitoring is mandated as part of the continual improvement cycle.
12. A continual improvement process is a basic concept inherent in an EMS.
A good EIA can serve to identify the key environmental issues and can recommend ways of avoiding or reducing adverse impacts, but if it lacks effective provisions for continuous monitoring and improvement, its objectives may not be met.
An EMS may set forth a detailed process for monitoring and reducing adverse impacts, but if it is not supported by an objective assessment of potential impacts conducted via an EIA process, it may not effectively monitor the appropriate parameters or reduce the most significant adverse impacts. A conceptual framework for integrating an EIA with EMS is shown in Fig. 37.4.
