Strategic Plan

Chair’s message

This Strategic Plan for the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) will guide our focus for 2019–2022 and centres on four pillars:

• improving the assessment and management of cumulative impacts
• being innovative in environmental information and digital environmental impact assessment (EIA)
• actively advising on the development of effective state environmental policies and plans
• improving the soundness, robustness and transparency of advice through our assessments.

The role of the EPA is to use its best endeavours to prevent, control and abate pollution and environmental harm. As custodians of the Western Australian environment, we must remain focused and innovative in our activities to ensure we are protecting the environment for present and future generations.

The EPA’s previous Strategic Plan, which guided our work from 2016–2019, ensured we focused on providing sound, robust and transparent advice while implementing the recommendations of the 2016 Legal and Governance Review.

Part of our mandate moving forward will include championing the capture, curation and availability of environmental data. The potential in the digital landscape to add value to environmental assessments and to share information more easily and effectively with the public, stakeholders and other jurisdictions continues to grow.

The EPA will also move towards a greater focus on cumulative impact assessment. Taking a strategic approach to areas identified as having existing or future high cumulative environmental impacts will become more of a priority for assessments in coming years.

There is a growing community interest in the environmental impact of development in Western Australia, and the Western Australian public expects the EPA to exercise its statutory duties at a high standard.

The EPA remains committed to its mandate to protect the environment and to ensure public expectations around advice transparency and rigour are met.

Dr Tom Hatton

Chair