Workshop organized offline and online for 18 EVN meeting stations.

The workshop was organized for the first time, aiming to equip knowledge, skills and update regulations on biodiversity impact assessment, thereby, supporting the staff directly implementing environmental work on construction investment at EVN units to overcome practical difficulties and obstacles, and at the same time creating a forum to share experiences for units that are and will implement construction investment projects of the Group.

Emphasizing the importance of environmental protection (EP) associated with biodiversity conservation, Vice President Pham Hong Phuong said that EVN always pays attention to and focuses on EP in the spirit of thoroughly understanding and strictly complying with legal regulations throughout the entire project life cycle, from the investment preparation stage, investment implementation to operation of works. In particular, assessing the impact of biodiversity in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020 and guiding documents is a mandatory requirement in the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report, especially for projects that are likely to affect natural habitats, special-use forests, protection forests, and conservation forests.

In addition to complying with domestic regulations, when accessing foreign loans for projects (such as the Hoa Binh Hydropower Expansion Project, Ialy Hydropower Expansion Project, Bac Ai Pumped Storage Hydropower Plant, Tri An Hydropower Expansion Project), EVN also fully complies with strict international standards on biodiversity conservation, such as: Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Ramsar Convention, Environmental and Social Performance Standards (IFC PS6), IUCN Red Book, and so on.

It was also stated by EVN leaders that, in the context of increasingly strict regulations on environmental protection and biodiversity conservation in Vietnam and internationally, it requires each officer in charge of management and protection of the investment and construction environment at EVN units to constantly strive to improve their professional qualifications and ensure quality in the synchronous implementation process from project preparation to the design, construction and operation stages of the works.

Therefore, EVN hopes that, with the support of the EU Delegation to Vietnam and AFD, the workshop will help equip the necessary knowledge and skills in this field. In particular, with the shared real-life situations and practical experiences, it will contribute to removing difficulties and obstacles that EVN units are facing in preparing and implementing construction investment projects.

Donor representatives from EU Delegation to Vietnam and AFD

Ms. Buen highly appreciated the organization of the workshop as an essential and important task, and at the same time, it was a concrete demonstration of the partnership based on common goals of sustainable development, climate change resilience and green growth. She hoped that the workshops on assessing the biodiversity impacts of EVN's construction investment projects would help the Group and its units fully equip themselves with the necessary capacity to be able to apply international tools, standards and practices to all future projects, right from the first preliminary survey steps.

Within the framework of the workshop, experts from the Institute of Biology presented a number of contents closely related to the implementation of environmental impact assessment reports of construction investment projects, such as: current regulations on biodiversity applicable to construction investment projects; introducing practical methodologies and tools to support the assessment of biodiversity impacts of construction investment projects, difficulties and proposing solutions for implementation. EVN units also shared difficulties in the implementation process in practice related to the basis and ground for assessing biodiversity impacts; how to identify biodiversity conservation criteria during project implementation; how to determine the scope of "core zones" and "buffer zones"...

The combined training workshop was organized with the support of the Vietnam Energy Transition Fund (ETEF), implemented by a group of European donors, to serve activities on technical assistance consultancy, other advisory services, and capacity building related to the field of environmental protection and biodiversity, aiming to support Vietnam to achieve the Net Zero target by 2050.

Translator: Mạnh Hùng