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27-29 August 2019 | EEAcademy ENI summer school on integrated environmental assessment towards integrated sustainability assessments

Countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine

This event took place at the EEA’s premises in Copenhagen. This new training programme on integrated environmental assessments is designed for the ENI region, developed and offered in the context of the EEAcademy. Twenty-five experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, Eionet experts and staff of international agencies attended the 2019 summer school. Strengthening their competencies in integrated assessment benefits their current roles as contributors to SoE reporting and reporting on sustainable development.

The overall programme covered the why, what and how of integrated environmental assessment and looked in detail at how to advance from an integrated environmental assessment to an integrated sustainability assessment. The programme was designed and prepared by experts from the EEA, VITO, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Flanders Environment Agency and Sapienza University of Rome. The training included plenary sessions/lectures and group work seminars. It covered issues encountered in using integrated assessment frameworks and tools in the transition to more holistic sustainability assessments, seeking to gain a broader understanding of the challenges and methodological advances.

An interactive session and group exercise were organised around managing stakeholders and reporting on SDGs. A matrix of stakeholders for managing and assessing targets and identified indicators for five SDGs (SDG 2 —zero hunger; SDG 7 — affordable and clean energy; SDG 12 — responsible consumption and production; SDG 14 — life below water; and SDG 15 — life on land) was developed.

The participants developed the following recommendations:

  • Amend the political targets and related indicators of sustainable development. An example is the emerging political issues associated with production and use of plastics and the effects of environmental pollution.
  • Use modern tools and modern technologies that spatially relate to developing data and indicators. This will result in regular and up-to-date environmental assessments.

The findings of the working groups on the integrated sustainability assessment of five SDGs (2, 7, 12, 14 and 15) were presented to a virtual meeting of stakeholders and recorded.

Participants evaluated the training as excellent and good:

‘Thank you for all your efforts during the Summer School to share with us existing best practices toward integrated environmental and sustainability assessments.’
Lasha Akhalaia, Georgia
‘Thank you for all of your efforts in organizing this Summer School, for us, one of the most interesting and informative, we’ve ever run. We look forward to meet you again next year.’
Ani Hambardzumyan, Armenia
‘Thank you for Summer school 2019: for very friendly atmosphere, for very good organization, for very useful and interesting content of school.’
Natalia Nagorneva, Ukraine

The event was covered by the Environmental Agency of the Republic of Moldova and EnvStats newsletter