Developing and Assessing Alternatives in Strategic Environmental Assessment - Good Practice Guidance

Alternatives are fundamental to Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and are required under the SEA Directive (Directive 2001/42/EC). The timely consideration of alternatives in SEA and the planning process provides an opportunity to identify and explore ways of accommodating the future development needs of an area or sector, taking into account the intrinsic environmental conditions (Figure 1.1). An effective SEA process should include early consideration of realistic, reasonable, viable and implementable alternatives that promote environmental benefits while fulfilling the plan’s/programme’s objectives. This guidance sets out a good practice approach to SEA alternatives for practitioners. The recommendations and Toolkit provided are based on approaches that have been found to be effective and useful in practice. However, these are not intended as a prescriptive set of rules, and other approaches may also be useful.