Abstract
Impact assessments are used throughout different sectors to evaluate the potential damages and benefits to the environment and the society, which a given project or realization could cause. Impact assessments are applicable to all sectors from construction to agriculture, services and industry. In many countries, (environmental) impact assessments are part of the legal requirements for any new project beyond a certain size. Socio-economic impact assessments are relevant to many bioenergy, biofuel and bio-product production processes. These assessments consists of the following steps: (1) scoping and issues identification, (2) determination of the social and economic baseline, (3) predicting and analyzing impacts, (4) determination of significance (5) mitigation, management and monitoring. Socio-economic impact assessments can be used as an add-on to environmental impact assessment and to support biomass certification schemes. An example of the latter is the RSB scheme in which a screening tool is applied to determine if impact assessments are required as part of the biomass certification process.
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Vis, M., Dörnbrack, AS., Haye, S. (2014). Socio-Economic Impact Assessment Tools. In: Rutz, D., Janssen, R. (eds) Socio-Economic Impacts of Bioenergy Production. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03829-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03829-2_1
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