Environmental Impact Assessment as a social process: The case of nuclear waste storage in Sweden

The process underlying the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for large developments is often designed to allow opportunities for members of the public and NGOs to voice their opinions. This study describes the EIA process leading to a decision in the question of radioactive waste storage in Sweden. While it should be possible for a deciding authority to reject an EIA on the basis of non-involvement of the public or NGOs, this study illustrates the way in which the EIA process may be formed by different social norms that relate to the specific case. Authorities can be considered to represent a plan paradigm (by which the project itself as well as political decisions made about it are in focus), whereas many environmental organizations traditionally represent an environment paradigm, focusing on the risk of potentially ecologically harmful processes. These differences can also be seen as symptomatic of the inclusion of parts of an environment paradigm in legislation such as the Swedish Environmental Code.

[1]  Ortwin Renn,et al.  A New Approach to Risk Evaluation and Management: Risk‐Based, Precaution‐Based, and Discourse‐Based Strategies 1 , 2002, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[2]  Amy Gurowitz.  Mobilizing International Norms: Domestic Actors, Immigrants, and the Japanese State , 1999, World Politics.

[3]  Camilla Sandström,et al.  Research, part of a Special Feature on Understanding Adaptive Capacity in Forest Governance Local Consequences of Applying International Norms: Differences in the Application of Forest Certification in Northern Sweden, Northern Finland, and Northwest Russia , 2009 .

[4]  Lennart Sjöberg,et al.  Precautionary attitudes and the acceptance of a local nuclear waste repository , 2009 .

[5]  R. Meertens,et al.  Priorities in Information Desire about Unknown Risks , 2002, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[6]  P. Slovic.  The Psychology of risk , 2010 .

[7]  Lennart Sjöberg,et al.  Fairness, risk and risk tolerance in the siting of a nuclear waste repository , 2001 .

[8]  P. Leskinen,et al.  Forestry Organization Network in Northern Finland , 2003 .

[9]  L. Sjöberg.  Risk Perception: Experts and the Public , 1998 .

[10]  Lennart Sjöberg,et al.  Factors in Risk Perception , 2000 .

[11]  P. Slovic.  Perception of risk. , 1987, Science.

[12]  James Blake.  Overcoming the ‘value‐action gap’ in environmental policy: Tensions between national policy and local experience , 1999 .

[13]  M. Finnemore,et al.  International Norm Dynamics and Political Change , 1998, International Organization.

[14]  Lennart Sjöberg,et al.  Local Acceptance of a High‐Level Nuclear Waste Repository , 2004, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[15]  L Sjöberg,et al.  Knowledge and risk perception among nuclear power plant employees. , 1991, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.