Box A4.2: Problems, concerns or issues; objectives; targets; and indicators or guiding questions

Environmental objectives may be derived from many different sources, such as sustainable development strategies, policies and legislation and from other plans and programmes. They may also be apparent from the context of the proposed plan or programme, in terms of local environmental problems, concerns or issues.

Development and environmental objectives may be supplemented by targets and these in turn by either quantitative indicators or more qualitative guiding questions (i.e. open ended, non-judgmental questions that focus inquiry on a specific topic and direct a search for understanding, but without being leading questions). For example, an objective might be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the target would be less carbon dioxide from electricity generation and one indicator household electricity use in kilowatt-hours per annum. The United Kingdom guidance on the application of the SEA Directive provides examples of environmental objectives and indicators. The Irish guidance on the Directive includes examples of indicators together with a list of further sources of environmental objectives: Irish – though typical of many countries –, European Union and international. Sources might include those indicated in Table A4.1. Further examples will be indicated on the Protocol website.[28]

It is important that objectives are identified for all relevant environmental concerns. The indicators can then be used in the report preparation (art. 7) to guide the collection of baseline information and to assess the effects of alternatives on the objectives. Further, the indicators can be monitored to assess the effectiveness of the plan and to identify unforeseen effects (art. 12).