Public participation and socio-economic impacts: What's new in the Environmental Assessment in Castilla-La Mancha

The latest legislative changes in Castilla-La Mancha point to a greater weight of socio-economic impacts and the role of local governments in the Evaluation procedure.

The New Legal Amendment

Last March, There Were important legislative changes in the Environmental Assessment process in Castilla-La Mancha, through the approval of the Law 1/2024, of March 15, on Administrative Measures and the Creation of the Digital Transformation Agency of Castilla-La Mancha, which will modify articles 37, 39, 41.2, 52.4, 53.2 and additional provision 5 of the Law 2/2020, of February 7, on the Environmental Assessment of Castilla-La Mancha.

Specifically, the new structure is relevant because of:

• Incorporate two new documents into the procedure: the Urban Compatibility Report and the Socioeconomic Affection Report for the project (responsibility of local governments).
• To make City Councils entities with greater weight and significance, whose reports become mandatory in prior consultations.
• It involves private operators in advertising and transparency, requiring them to submit an executive summary descriptive of the actions and their potential effects (which must be published and disseminated).

These legislative innovations, which, despite being circumscribed within the framework of environmental assessment, are predisposed to have scope of relevance to local autonomy and territorial planning, are aimed at - in the words of the legislator - Increase the participation of City Councils in environmental impact assessments of planned activities in their municipalities.

Of great importance is also the amendment that this rule makes to paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 of article 5 of the Law 5/2020, of 24 July, on Urgent Measures for the Declaration of Priority Projects in Castilla-La Mancha, resulting in a new wording of special relevance for promoters of renewable projects:

“The beneficiary of the declaration will be obliged to keep in the municipality of Castilla-La Mancha where the project subject to declaration is located the assets declared in the project report, such as the investment, the declared activity and the employment to which they committed themselves for a minimum period of three years, which will be counted from the end date of the project execution period. It must include the investments mentioned in the report in the company's assets, keep them within its economic activity associated with the project for which the priority project declaration is intended, during the period mentioned above.”

The causes of the reform in the deployment of renewable energies

As we already know, the necessary deployment of renewable energies has shared effects aligned with energy security, sustainability and the promotion of the economy. However, its implementation - like all human activity - has significant externalities that must be Evaluate, Monitor and Mitigate. And that is the purpose of Environmental Assessment Procedures in which Public Administrations, private operators and promoters, active citizens and independent technical entities (such as Environmental Ideas) participate.

These evaluation procedures (due to the legal configuration of the paradigm of NEPA At the beginning in the 70s in the United States) have so far placed the greatest weight of analysis on purely environmental variables (with greater consensus on measurement methodologies), assuming One of the greatest legal and technical advances in the protection of biodiversity and ecosystems.

However, although these successful procedures subject the renewable sector to strict controls, preventing irreparable environmental disasters from taking place in many cases, they are not fruitful when it comes to Socially pacify the implantation process of these projects.

La Absence and difficulty in measuring social, cultural and economic impacts in the evaluation; the widespread omission of local actors in the territory, Scarcely Involved in the Procedure; and the absence of mechanisms that help to sophisticated debate and Deliberation on the shared value of projects, has caused a proliferation of suspicion and mistrust in some social sectors of the territories of implantation.

The regulatory keys that establish a new phase in project evaluation

This background, in line with social demands and the recommendations of specialists, has caused both regional legislators and private promoters and operators to try to explore New Formulas That Make Up For The Deficiencies So Far Manifested, trying to involve local actors and increasing the weight and meaning of socio-economic aspects in evaluation and impact.

Specifically, the new Castilian-Manchego legislation that concerns us provisions establishes that it targets both local institutional actors and private agents, in the sense of:

• Increase governance through decentralization, bringing the process of Dialogue and Participation at Level of Government Closest to Citizenship affected (City Councils).
• Sophisticate the assessment, monitoring and mitigation of impacts, including social and economic aspects (through the so-called Socioeconomic Affection Report of the project and its synergistic effects with other projects).
• Provide the procedure with greater legal guarantees, involving the planning and planning approach of the territory with the deployment of renewables (through Urban Compatibility Report).
• Value the Good Practices and the Generation of Shared Value developed by the projects of private operators (through their mandatory publication and dissemination through executive summaries, descriptive of actions and potentialities).

In short and on paper, this and other recent legal innovations are the ideal opportunity to gradually rectify the deficiencies that the old environmental assessment procedure has presented with regard to social and economic impacts, as well as to deepen governance and citizen participation in the implementation of projects, involving public and private actors in the process of mitigating impacts and generating shared value.

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Environmental Ideas advises and accompanies both private operators and agents and local public entities and administrations, in the preparation of their Socioeconomic Affection Reports, in the implementation of social and environmental mitigation measures, in the development of Participatory Processes, and in the implementation of Strategies for the Generation of Shared Value.

Valentín Cano, Sustainability