Basic contents on environmental impact assessment in Vietnam

1. Environmental impact assessment objects

According to Article 18 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2014 of Vietnam, environmental impact assessment objects consist of:

- Projects subject to the decision on investment intentions made by the National Assembly, Government and the Prime Minister;

- Projects that use land parcels situated in wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, historical – cultural monuments, world heritage sites, biosphere reserves, scenic beauty areas that have been ranked;

- Projects that can cause bad effects on the environment.

2. Requirements pertaining to environmental impact assessment agencies

According to Article 13 of Decree No. 18/2015/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government, the project owner or the advisory organization conducting environmental impact assessment must meet all requirements below:

- There are staff members in charge of environmental impact assessment meeting requirements prescribed in Clause 2 of this Article;

- There is specialist staff members related to the project obtaining at least Bachelor’s degrees;

- There are laboratories, inspection and calibration devices eligible for performing measurement, sampling, processing and analysis of environmental samples serving the environmental impact assessment of the project; if there is not any laboratory with decent equipment for inspection and calibration, it is required to have a contract with a unit capable of carrying out inspection and calibration.

The staff members in charge of environmental impact assessment must obtain at least Bachelor’s degrees and Certificate in environmental impact assessment consultancy.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Vietnam shall manage the training and issuance of Certificates in consultancy of environmental impact assessment.

3. Carrying out the environment impact assessment

According to Article 19 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2014 of Vietnam, the environment impact assessment is carried out as follows:

- Owners of projects regulated in Clause 1 Article 18 of this Law shall carry out, on his own, or hire an advisory organization to carry out the environmental impact assessment and take statutory responsibility for the conclusive result after carrying out such assessment.

- The environment impact assessment must be performed in the preparatory stage of the project.

- The conclusive result yielded after carrying out the environment impact assessment shall be expressed in the form of the report on environmental impact assessment.

- Expenses incurred from the formulation and inspection of the report on environmental impact assessment, and included in the total investment budget shall be covered by the project owner.

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