Environmental criteria for investment project classification in Vietnam

Environmental criteria for investment project classification in Vietnam (Internet image)

Regarding this issue, LawNet would like to answer as follows:

1. Environmental criteria for investment project classification in Vietnam

According to Article 28 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020, environmental criteria for investment project classification are as follows:

* Environmental criteria for investment project classification include:

- Scale, capacity and type of production, business and service;

- Area of land, land with water surface, and sea used; scale of extraction of natural resources;

- Environmentally sensitive factors including high density residential areas; water source used for supply of domestic water; wildlife sanctuaries prescribed by the law on biodiversity and fisheries; types of forests prescribed by the law on forestry; other tangible cultural heritage and natural heritage sites; land meant for growing wet rice during 02 or more cropping seasons; important wetlands; migration and relocation requirements and other environmental sensitive factors.

* According to the environmental criteria set out in Clause 1 of Article 28 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020, investment projects shall be classified into Group I, II, III and IV.

* Group I investment projects are those that pose a high risk of adverse environmental impacts, including:

- Large-scale and capacity projects involved in types of production, business and services that are likely to cause environmental pollution; projects providing hazardous waste treatment service; projects involving import of scrap from foreign countries as production materials;

- Medium-scale and capacity projects involved in types of production, business and services with environmentally sensitive factors that are likely to cause; large-scale and capacity projects not involved in types of production, business and services with environmentally sensitive factors that are likely to cause environmental pollution;

- Large- or medium-scale projects using land, land with water surface and marine area with environmentally sensitive factors;

- Large- or medium-scale and capacity projects on extraction of minerals and water resources with environmentally sensitive factors;

- Projects requiring repurposing of land on at least medium scale with environmentally sensitive factors;

- Large-scale projects requiring migration and relocation.

* Group II investment projects are those that pose a risk of adverse environmental impacts, except for those specified in Clause 3 of this Article, including:

- Medium-scale and capacity projects involved in types of production, business and services that are likely to cause environmental pollution;

- Small-scale and capacity projects involved in types of production, business and services with environmentally sensitive factors that are likely to cause environmental pollution; medium-scale and capacity projects not involved in types of production, business and services with environmentally sensitive factors that are likely to cause environmental pollution;

- Large- or medium-scale projects using land, land with water surface and marine area with environmentally sensitive factors;

- Small-scale and capacity projects on extraction of minerals and water resources with environmentally sensitive factors;

- Small-scale projects requiring repurposing of land with environmentally sensitive factors;

- Medium-scale projects requiring migration and relocation.

* Group III investment projects are those that pose a risk of adverse environmental impacts, except for those specified in Clauses 3 and 4 of Article 28 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020, including:

- Small-scale and capacity projects involved in types of production, business and services that are likely to cause environmental pollution;

- Projects not involved in types of production, business and services that are likely to cause environmental pollution and generating wastewater, dusts and exhaust gases that must be treated or generating hazardous waste that must be managed in accordance with regulations on waste management.

* Group IV investment projects are those that do not pose a risk of adverse environmental impacts, except for those specified in Clauses 3, 4 and 5 of Article 28 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020.

2. Regulations on preliminary environmental impact assessment in Vietnam

Regulations on preliminary environmental impact assessment under Article 29 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020 are as follows:

- Projects subject to PEIA are group I investment projects specified in Clause 3 Article 28 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020.

- The PEIA shall be conducted during the period of pre-feasibility study on investment in construction, proposal for investment guidelines and request for approval of investment guidelines for investment projects subject to investment guideline decision or approval in accordance with the Law on Investment, Law on Public Investment, Law on Public-Private Partnership and Law on Construction.

- The PEIA shall focus on:

+ Assessing the conformity of the investment project location with the national environmental protection strategy, national environmental protection planning and environmental protection contents in regional planning, provincial planning and other relevant planning;

+ Identifying and predicting major environmental impacts of the investment project on the basis of scale, production technology and location of the project;

+ Identifying environmentally sensitive factors present in the investment project location according to the location selection methods (if any);

+ Analyzing, assessing and selecting a scheme regarding scale, production technology, technology for waste treatment and location of the investment project, and solutions for reducing environmental impacts;

+ Determining notable major environmental issues and environmental impacts during the EIA.

- Entities proposing the investment projects in Clause 1 of Article 29 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020 shall conduct PEIA. PEIA contents shall be considered by a competent authority together with the application for investment guideline decision or approval.

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