Accuracy, quality essential in environmental reports

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment reiterated its zero tolerance stance against misconduct in writing environmental impact assessment reports as it announced punishments for 10 institutions engaged in the work late on Tuesday.

The ministry reviewed 335 reports examined and approved by 25 provincial-level environmental authorities from April to September 2019, and found misconduct in 15 of them.

Some of the reports lack environmental protection targets, and some don't include calculations for some pollution sources, according to a media release from the ministry.

Aside from being exposed and criticized in a circular, these institutions and 19 of their employees were deducted points ranging from five to 15 in a credit system specially established for companies involved in the assessment work.

Under the system, institutions or individuals will be blacklisted if they are deducted 20 points in a year, which means they will have their qualifications suspended for writing such reports for a period of time, or even be banned.

Three of the companies and one of the individuals were deducted 10 or 15 points. They will be listed as key targets for supervision and inspections, it said.

The credit system was established after the ministry stopped examining and approving the qualifications of institutions for environmental impact assessment in a reform in November 2019.

"The handling (of the violations) and the issuing of the circular show the zero tolerance of the environmental authority against quality problems with environmental impact assessment reports, and also manifest its determination in enhancing supervision and seriously crack down on violations in accordance with laws and regulations," it said.

It also said it will increase the frequencies of random inspections into reports for key projects in key regions, and those institutions and individuals with stains on their credit records.

"The ministry will seriously hold accountable those found responsible for problems in reviews," it said.

In a reform in 2018, the ministry delegated the authority to examine and approve the environmental impact assessment report of most types of construction projects to provincial-level environmental authorities.

After the reform, only reports for projects that cross provincial level regions or river basins and major chemical projects with large pollutant emissions have to be handled by the ministry. But the ministry carried out random inspections into other reports to ensure quality.