Submission to Bonsucro re Production Standard v5 (2019-21)

In July 2020, CCSI made a formal submission to Bonsucro, an international multi-stakeholder initiative and certification scheme concerned with promoting sustainable sugar cane production. The submission formed part of consultations for Bonsucro’s draft Production Standard version 5. CCSI’s submission focused on challenges associated with implementing, and auditing for compliance with, three aspects of Bonsucro’s draft standard, namely: Obtaining the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of Indigenous and traditional communities when establishing or expanding sugar production operations Implementing transparent and participatory processes to assess, monitor, and evaluate the environmental and social impacts of new and existing projects; and Establishing accessible dispute resolution and grievance mechanisms that allow communities to raise and resolve problems. The submission proposed a concrete solution to complement Bonsucro operators’ efforts to more effectively meet that Standard in practice: a Basket Fund for Responsible Investment. A Basket Fund for Responsible Investment refers to an independently administered fund that receives financial contributions from multiple sources and then makes grants to pay for technical support – from civil society organizations, paralegals, organizers, non-legal experts, and lawyers, among others – for investment-affected communities. Financial contributors would include Bonsucro operators whose revenues exceed a certain threshold, potentially alongside such operators’ financiers, investors, large-scale suppliers, and customers, among others. By diversifying its sources of funding, a Basket Fund can achieve greater independence of community support, minimizing the risk of actual or perceived undue influence over the community or its support providers. The submission also noted that facilitating affected communities’ access to technical support through a Basket Fund would also benefit private sector organizations, given that a lack of community support increases the risk of grievances and conflict, which can result in material costs for companies and their investors

Environmental Policy Update 2012: Development Strategies and Environmental Policy in East Africa

The seven chapters that comprise this report explore ways to integrate sustainability goals and objectives into Ethiopia's current development strategies

Kenya 'Olkaria IV' Case Study Report: Human Rights Analysis of the Resettlement Process

This case study considers the involuntary resettlement of about 950 people in August 2014 as part of the Olkaria IV project. Olkaria IV is a 140 MW geothermal power plant in Kenya, constructed with the financial support of European and other international finance institutions (IFIs). The Olkaria area by now has four plants and another four are being planned. In addition to Olkaria, geothermal exploration has been undertaken elsewhere in the Rift Valley. All Kenyan geothermal power plants, in Olkaria and elsewhere, are already or are expected to be registered as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects. Geothermal power also accommodates international donors’ and development banks’ official commitments to support climate mitigation. In this context the Olkaria IV resettlement may serve as a showcase of the socioeconomic challenges and human rights infringements project affected people are exposed to. The case study discusses the alleged human rights violations and disentangles the complex web of responsibilities. It provides for local background information, discusses the national and international legal frameworks, and puts its focus on the extraterritorial obligations of the financiers, in particular of the European Investment Bank and its shareholders: the EU and the EU member states. Emphasis of the human rights analysis rests on the situation of procedural rights, which arguably contributed to the infringement of substantive rights

Over a century of small hydropower projects in Indonesia:a historical review

Background: Hydropower is a mature energy technology and one that could play a more important role in providing clean and reliable energy. In small-scale contexts, hydropower is useful for providing electricity access, balancing intermittent resources, and as a potential source of energy storage. This paper provides a comprehensive exploration of the development of the small hydropower (SHP) sector in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country. Methods: Two research methods were employed: secondary data analysis through a desk review of relevant literature and primary data collection through site visits and expert and stakeholder interviews. Two case studies of micro-hydro applications in community-based rural electrification were analyzed. The paper explores how SHP projects were initiated, lessons learned, and policy recommendations of relevance to further development of distributed small-scale renewable energy in Indonesia. Results: The sector commenced during the Dutch Era and now centers on both community-based rural electrification projects and commercial schemes under the independent power producer (IPP) approach. Since the late 1980s, initiatives to implement SHP for rural electrification have flourished through various programs. Key regulatory, economic, and technical barriers include inconsistent and unclear supporting regulations, especially regarding electricity prices; artificially low retail electricity prices; capital and borrowing constraints; advantages provided to fossil fuels; limited technical experience and capabilities of project developers and project sponsors; risks from floods, earthquakes, and landslides; constraints on supporting infrastructure; and limited grid links. The most successful and sustainable SHP projects are ones that provide local economic benefits and for which local communities are empowered with ownership and have responsibility for maintenance. Conclusions: SHP will remain small from a macro perspective but could still play a key role in further improving energy access and equity in remote areas. Key initiatives to facilitate this development could include local-level capacity building and project participation and the adequate pricing of negative externalities from fossil fuel projects. Indonesia’s long experience with SHP carries lessons for other developing countries.</p

The Good Practice Framework for European Sustainable Urbanisation through port city Regeneration. An operative guide

The ENSURE research reveals that port cities are relevant in sustainable urban regeneration. Taking into account the sensitivity of urban and port contexts, and the solutions adopted across European port cities, this Guide delivers a set of key policies in order to plan and manage the regeneration process, and describes how to apply a suitable model for regeneration in port cities

Liberal international environmental justice and foreign direct investment at the International Finance Corporation

2012 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.In recent years there have been broad and important debates about whether international environmental justice is attainable within the liberal model. This issue warrants examination, particularly in a context which reflects the strongest possible potential for liberal claims. An especially potent commendation of the liberal model is found in North-to-South foreign direct investment, where liberal advocates identify investment as a key strategy to improve the life chances of the poor. However, foreign direct investment today reflects in many cases dimensions of injustice as between investor and affected populations. Such injustices arise in particular where an investment project taps into local resources such as land, air, water, precious metals, and so on without sufficient participation by affected persons in the benefits of such resource access. These sorts of inequities are especially troubling where the investor originates in one of the wealthier countries of the global North and the recipient country and affected population resides in the global South. This study attempts to then answer the question: may such injustices be remediated within the scope of a liberal model of economic activity and development? That is, can liberal prescriptions for justice be satisfied by liberal economic precepts and patterns? The study first posits a social liberal amendment to dominant contemporary neoliberal understandings. The analysis then turns to the World Bank Group's International Finance Corporation as a potential best-case example of efforts to render North-South foreign direct investment more environmentally sound. In particular, the study asks whether the policies and programs of the International Finance Corporation may be fairly seen to accommodate liberal justice precepts. Culling the existing literature, and employing evidence gleaned from documentary analysis and in-person interviews, the study asks whether the International Finance Corporation is durably engaged in advancing international environmental justice in financed projects. Through a deconstruction of International Finance Corporation documents and case studies of a purposive sample of recently-financed projects the study asks whether there is more going on at the International Finance Corporation than mere environmental window-dressing. The analysis shows that a social liberal international environmental justice is being advanced, but not evenly. The study concludes that a stronger implementation of international environmental justice is possible within the social liberal model, but that improvements are needed

Strategic Environmental Assessment and the precautionary principle in the spatial planning of wind farms – European experience in Serbia

Spatial determination planning is at an initial and very sensitive step in the development of wind farms. On one hand, it is important to maximize the potential of wind in a particular area, and on the other hand, it is important to achieve environmental protection (including the human population and natural heritage) in the same space at the same time. With this in mind, it is important to balance all the requirements that are relevant for reaching the optimal solution when determining the micro-location of wind turbines at the earliest stages of the planning and development of wind power projects. In this context, planning is a key stage in finding sustainable solutions for the implementation of such projects, and an indispensable instrument in the planning process, offering support and control is Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). This paper presents the role of SEA in the planning process for wind farms. The place of the SEA process is identified in relation to other environmental impact assessment instruments, such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environmental Social Impact Assessment (ESIA), and a comparative analysis of these instruments is made, including their advantages and disadvantages. The results of the paper indicate the importance of applying SEA in the earliest stage of wind farm planning, so as to formally apply the precautionary principle and avoid problems, which in the later stages of the project, when EIA is usually used, can be disadvantageous both economically and in terms of environmental impact

The development effectiveness of environmental and social impact assessments in large dam projects : a case study of Mohale Dam.

An Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) is a process that identifies, predicts and evaluates the potential consequences of proposed development projects. This is in order to improve project decisions and mitigate adverse environmental and social impacts. Although ESIA may be an important step towards mitigating the negative environmental and social impacts of development, ESIA is not a technocratic tool free from subjectivities. Instead, it is embedded in a broader political context that is shaped by dominant development ideologies and values. This dissertation explores the ‘development effectiveness’ of ESIAs in large dam projects using the WCD analytical approach. This approach builds on a rights-and-risks based approach to understanding the ‘development effectiveness’ of a large dam project. The concept of ‘development effectiveness’ is however a subjective one (WCD, 2000). As such, the ‘development effectiveness’ of an ESIA must be evaluated by the stakeholders of a project. In this research report this is undertaken by evaluating the experiences of those affected by the construction of Mohale Dam in the Kingdom of Lesotho. In order to evaluate the experiences of those affected by the construction of Mohale Dam, the research conducted a total of 38 in-depth interviews. These in-depth interviews took place with 15 key informants who had expert knowledge in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, ESIAs and the social impacts of large dams. Added to this a total of 23 in-depth interviews were undertaken with households directly affected by the construction of Mohale Dam. A majority of these households were resettled (65%), while the other households (35%) remained in the Project Area but were given monetary compensation. The interviewed households were randomly selected from three directly affected villages, two of which were host villages. The villages were purposefully selected to represent the geographical distribution of affected households. The selected villages comprised Ha Mohale in the Highlands, Ha Nazareth in the Foothills and Ha Thaba Bosiu in the Lowlands. Ha Nazareth and Ha Thaba Bosiu comprised the host villages. These findings show that the Mohale ESIA was not informed by the local context but rather by definitions of development that prioritised money, individualism and single, instead of multiple livelihood strategies. As such the Mohale ESIA ignored the cultural and social context within which the dam was being constructed. This created a situation whereby some of the mitigation measures were culturally and socially inappropriate. Thus the ‘development effectiveness’ of the Mohale ESIA was directly compromised by the outcomes of some of the culturally inappropriate mitigation measures