environmental impact assessment

noun · Umweltverträglichkeitsprüfung

The Umweltverträglichkeitsprüfung is not a separate procedure and produces no decision of its own: it is a dependent part of the permit procedure it belongs to, and its result feeds into that decision. A translation that treats it as a consent to be obtained alongside the permit describes a structure German law deliberately avoided.

Which translation, when

unselbständiger Verfahrensteilthe structural point: the assessment is carried out within the procedure that leads to the permit, not beside it, so there is no separate application, no separate decision and no separate remedy against it; what can be challenged is the permit, and defects in the assessment are argued as defects of that decision.

Screening und Beteiligunghow it runs: whether an assessment is required follows from statutory lists and, for projects below them, from a preliminary examination of the individual case, and the procedure itself involves the applicant’s report, the participation of the authorities concerned and of the public, and a reasoned conclusion by the authority which it must take into account in deciding.

Wortfeldthe neighbouring instruments: the strategic environmental assessment applies to plans and programmes rather than to projects, the Verträglichkeitsprüfung under habitats law tests effects on protected sites and is a different examination altogether, and neither should be rendered with the same German word; the permit that the assessment feeds into is held by the permit for installations entry.

Why

Environmental impact assessment translates as Umweltverträglichkeitsprüfung, and the translation needs one structural warning. In several common-law systems the assessment produces a document that is itself approved, so that consent to the environmental statement and consent to the project can be separated. German law took the opposite route: the assessment is an unselbständiger Teil of the administrative procedure in which the project is decided. It has no application of its own, produces no decision of its own and cannot be challenged on its own; what the affected neighbour or the environmental association challenges is the permit, and shortcomings in the assessment are argued as defects of that permit. Whether an assessment is required at all follows from statutory lists of project types, with a preliminary examination of the individual case for projects below the thresholds, and the outcome of that screening is itself a step a translation should name rather than paraphrase. The procedure then requires the developer to supply a report on the environmental effects, the authorities whose remit is touched and the public to be involved, and the authority to reach a reasoned conclusion which it must take into account when it decides. Two neighbouring instruments must stay apart. The strategic environmental assessment applies to plans and programmes rather than to individual projects. And the assessment under habitats law examines effects on protected sites against a different standard entirely, so using one German word for all three produces a text no reader can sort.

Typical mistakes

The assessment is a dependent part of the permit procedure, so treating it as a separate consent misdescribes the German structure.
There is no remedy against the assessment as such, so a challenge must be directed at the permit.
Strategic environmental assessment and habitats assessment are different instruments, so one German word for all three makes the text unusable.

What matters

Planning a German permit procedure: the timetable should treat the assessment as a phase within the permit procedure, identify whether it is required by list or by preliminary examination, and build in the participation steps.

Authority

§ 4 BImSchG

What the machine misses

Left to a machine, environmental impact assessment becomes Umweltprüfung or Umweltverträglichkeitsstudie, one a wider statutory term and the other a document, while the procedural instrument is the Umweltverträglichkeitsprüfung, a dependent part of the permit procedure with no decision of its own; the loose rendering invites the assumption that it can be applied for and challenged separately.

See what the machine does with this clause →

Examples

an environmental impact assessment	eine Umweltverträglichkeitsprüfung
a dependent part of the administrative procedure	ein unselbständiger Teil des Verwaltungsverfahrens
preliminary examination of the individual case	die Vorprüfung des Einzelfalls
public participation	die Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung

More notes on these sections

permit for installations immissionsschutzrechtliche Genehmigung