Good Practices for Public Consultation

Public Consultation - When?

The public and the Advisory Council on the Environment (ACE) can provide comments during the statutory EIAO process:

• during exhibition of project profile, and
• during public inspection of EIA report

Notwithstanding the statutory provision, a project proponent is encouraged to proactively get public comments or involvement during the project life cycle. Not only will this improve transparency and acceptance of a project, it can also gauge and gather public concerns for a project proponent to address in an EIA report.

Early dialogue with the locals and seeking comments from different stakeholders helps:

• Promote good public relationship
• Avoid 'surprises' and find out concerns in the early stages of a project
• Gain public acceptance of a project

What to Expect during Public Consultation of an EIA Report?

In preparation of the public consultation, a proponent should get conversant with his EIA report, especially its recommendation and implementation schedule of mitigation measures. Some of the common questions raised might be:

• Quality and Completeness of the EIA Report ?
• Accuracy - the margin of error and the environmental risk ?
• Consistency with other similar EIA Reports ?
• Cumulative impacts ?
• Considerations given to options / alternatives ?
• Delivery of promises - the practicality and cost-effectiveness of mitigations ?

The Role of Executive Summary during Public Consultation

The Executive Summary of an EIA report is an useful tool in presenting findings of a project. It should set down all useful materials in a concise way in a manner readily understandable by general public.

The concept of Continuous Public Involvement (CPI)

Proponent must appreciate the importance of making use of every opportunity for early consultation with different stakeholders either formally or informally. This forms a process termed CPI as promoted by the Environmental Protection Department.

Emphases are placed upon the importance of early consultation for large scale projects where matters such as alignment, choice of site or orientation may be significant in terms of environmental impacts.