Strategic Environmental Assessment & The Danish Energy Sector: Exploring non-programmed strategic decisions

"Strategic Environmental Assessment and the Danish Energy Sector" is a doctoral thesis based on a Ph.D. project with the same title. The overall aim of the project has been to assist actors in the energy sector in developing a meaningful way of applying SEA at strategic level. Understanding of how strategic decisions are made is a prerequisite for achieving this target, and the thesis therefore explores the strategic decision-making processes of contemporary energy infrastructure developments.
The highlights of this thesis are:

- A combination of disciplines in a continuum of perspectives on strategic decision-making provides a strong framework for enhancing insight into how decisions are made.

- Sense-making theory is a pertinent frame for increasing insight into how we create meaning of information, which is crucial for how we perceive strategic choices and determine relevant alternatives.

- Empirical cases reveal how strategic decision-making in the sector is characterised by an extensive interaction between policy-making and planning in a highly dynamic context.

- The outlined characteristics challenge the application of SEA especially in terms of timing and flexibility. SEA practice is still in its infancy in the Danish energy sector, but SEA is achieving increased attention in the sector.

- The change agent research approach used in the project is relevant medium for a critical interdependence between theory and practice that at the same time promotes more sustainable decision-making.

The research is based on interaction with a range of actors in the Danish energy sector, hereunder Energinet.dk and the Danish Energy Agency. It draws on contemporary cases of policy and planning decisions like the development of offshore wind power and natural gas infrastructures. Application of SEA on these cases is crucial for reducing the risk of unintended environmental impacts and for enhancing attention to relevant alternatives prior to decision-making.