Integration of Environmental Sustainability

Since the late 1990s, growing awareness of environmental heritage and climate change has been reflected in increased efforts to build environmental sustainability into regional economic development. There is little argument about the merits of this, but many organisations have found this to be difficult in practice or have been discouraged by the demand placed upon them.

Fraser Associates staff have considerable experience of the practical application of environmental sustainability in projects and have been involved in interpreting European and UK regulations in a way that is meaningful at strategic and operational levels.

The work of our team in this field has included:

• evaluation of the economic impacts of environmental projects and their contribution to rural development for Scottish Natural Heritage.
• evaluation of the implementation of the environmental sustainability horizontal theme in Structural Funds Programmes in the Highlands and Islands, the North West and the West Midlands of England.
• advising enterprise agencies on implementing the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive.
• evaluating the contribution of Structural Funds Programmes across England to Government environmental objectives.
• developing a meaningful approach to SEA in the context of national and regional plans and programmes.
• undertaking Strategic Environmental Assessment as part of the ex-ante evaluation of the England Rural Development Programme 2007-13.