Decision Making for Sustainable Development: How Assessment Can Help

Despite recent progress in developing a political consensus that policy changes are needed at both the domestic and international level to address climate change, the required political and public will is still insufficient to overcome a number of political barriers limiting progress.This essay discusses the importance of raising public awareness of environmental issues and the role that assessment processes can have in this regard. Awareness of the environmental dimension of economic activities can be increased in numerous ways such as through education and training, public-service campaigns, product labelling, product marketing, and consumer activism. This essay, however, focuses on the role of environmental assessments; they provide a more formal and scientific way for information to be incorporated into policy decisions and the planning process.