Holger Dalkmann and Daniel Bongardt work at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, and Rodrigo Jiliberto lead the Spanish Consultancy TAU.

The objective of the The Analytical Strategic Environmental Assessment (ANSEA) approach is to provide a complementary and decision-centred approach to the SEA process. The ANSEA project grew out of recognition that in many cases SEA, as currently practised, is an insufficient tool to ensure integration of environmental values. From a practical perspective, SEA has often been focused on predicting the impacts while not understanding the decision-making process it is trying to influence. At strategic decision-making levels impact prediction is often infeasible or poor. From a theoretical perspective, more lessons could be learned from decision-making sciences.

The aim of the ANSEA approach is to provide a complementary and decision-centred approach to the SEA process. The background idea is that those moments in the decision making process that have an environmental dimension, which are called Decision Windows (DW), can be identified in a plan, programme or policy (PPP). Applying criteria for the procedure undertaken in each of the Decision Windows allows for careful consideration of environmental values.

The paper describes the full ANSEA process and discusses the relation to the EUDirective. The ANSEA process concentrate on the maximisation of the integration of environmental relevant elements instead of focusing on the mostly quantitative predicted environmental effects.

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Analytical Strategic Environmental Assessment (ANSEA):Developing a new approach of SEA