IEMA Guidance: Implementing the Mitigation Hierarchy from Concept to Construction - August 2024

Experienced impact assessment practitioners know the value of integrating environmental and social considerations into the design of projects to seek and identify opportunities for positive outcomes, enhancements and beneficial effects, as well as identify and seek ways to avoid or mitigate negative and harmful effects.

This publication provides much needed guidance on how to properly implement the mitigation hierarchy from the earliest stages of a project, and how to maintain and communicate the mitigation measures across the pre-consent assessment phase into the crucial construction phase.

Too often, our members have reported inadequate implementation of construction phase mitigations, and insufficient monitoring and enforcement of environmental conditions agreed upon at the assessment and consenting phase. Furthermore, our construction phase environmental managers have reported inadequate information being transferred to the construction phase teams, and often inflexible or impractical conditions or mitigation measures leading to costly and lengthy delays to the discharge of planning conditions, giving environmental management a negative reputation for introducing costly ‘red tape’.

These guidelines have been produced by IEMA members who are leading practitioners from across sectors and industries, providing insights and advice on how best to identify enhancements and avoid impacts through early intervention in the design process; and for those impacts that cannot be avoided, how to identify appropriate mitigation, secure the planning conditions and transfer that information between project phases. In particular, the guidance provides new advice on the essential stage of contractor procurement, to provide accurate and clear environmental mitigation via well-drafted Construction Environmental Management Plans (CEMPs), to ensure that important mitigations are implemented and monitored correctly, without leading to unnecessary delays in planning conditions, discharge and project implementation.

Finally, these guidelines end with recommendations on monitoring the implementation of mitigation and advocate for the use of independent Environmental Clerks of Works. These guidelines update and build on our excellent publications, Shaping Quality Development (2015) and Delivering Quality Development (2016).

IEMA members can download their copy of Implementing the Mitigation Hierarchy from Concept to Construction here

Non-IEMA members can purchase the document from our online shop (under 'EIA Guidance')

Rufus Howard

Policy and Engagement Lead at IEMA, IEMA

Dr Howard is the policy and engagement lead for Impact Assessment at IEMA and a leading professional in EIA, with two decades of international experience across renewable energy and major infrastructure.