IEMA wins international EIA award

Institute receives IAIA accolade for its EIA Quality Mark scheme and its special report into 25 years of impact assessment practice

Award On 25 January, the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) announced that IEMA had won its 2012 institutional award, stating the Institute had been selected “because of its promotion of quality and [for] improving environmental practice and performance in environmental impact assessment in the UK”.

IEMA was nominated for the award by Ross Marshall, manager of the Environment Agency’s National Environmental Assessment Service (NEAS), following the 2011 launch of the EIA Quality Mark scheme and publication of its special report, State of environmental impact assessment in the UK.

Josh Fothergill, IEMA’s policy and practice lead on environmental impact assessment (EIA), will collect the prize when the awards are formally presented during the IAIA’s 32nd annual conference in Portugal in May.

Marshall put IEMA forward for consideration because of the Institute’s “strategic approach to improving quality in EIA practice”. Claire Lea, IEMA’s director of membership strategy and development, said: “IEMA is delighted the EIA Quality Mark and special report on the state of EIA practice has been recognised by IAIA. We would like to thank Ross and the IAIA committee and board for recognising IEMA’s leadership and contributions to EIA.

“We feel that the EIA Quality Mark scheme, which has been in place less than a year, is making a significant contribution to the improvement of EIA in the UK, encouraging knowledge sharing and the improvement of practice. Receiving the institutional award is a great achievement and a fantastic start to 2012.”

The IAIA’s institutional award is presented to a national or international government or non-governmental organisation that has made an outstanding contribution to impact assessment practice or other environmental activity.

Past winners include the African Development Bank, the International Institute for Environment Development, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the Capacity Development and Linkages for Environmental Assessment in Africa.

To find out more about IEMA’s work on EIA, including the Quality Mark scheme and the State of environmental impact assessment in the UK, click here. Further details on the IAIA awards are here.