Integrated environmental management guideline: guideline on need and desirability

The Integrated environmental management guideline: guideline on need and desirability "contains information on best practice and how to meet the peremptory requirements prescribed by the legislation and sets out both the strategic and statutory context for the consideration of the need and desirability of a development involving any one of the NEMA listed activities. Need and desirability is based on the principle of sustainability, set out in the Constitution and in NEMA, and provided for in various policies and plans, including the National Development Plan 2030 (NDP). Addressing the need and desirability of a development is a way of ensuring sustainable development – in other words, that a development is ecologically sustainable and socially and economically justifiable – and ensuring the simultaneous achievement of the triple bottom-line.

The Guideline sets out a list of questions which should be addressed when considering need and desirability of a proposed development. These are divided into questions that relate to ecological sustainability and justifiable economic and social development."