Methods of Evaluation and RIA

Project:

Taxonomy - classification scheme for evaluation of sustainability in agriculture

Submitter:

Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic

Invetigator:

IEEP, Institute for Economic and Environmental Policy, Faculty of Social and Economic Studies - Jan Evangelista Purkyně University

Project duration: 

01/2022–12/2025

Description:

A number of sub-instruments are being developed to meet the EU’s environmental goals such as New Green Deal targets or achieving carbon neutrality, etc. One of them is the EU Taxonomy, which is a system for classifying economic activities according to their environmental impacts. The EU Taxonomy aims to encourage private investment in sustainable growth and contribute to a climate neutral economy in a number of different sectors. Agriculture is one of them.
The project will lead to the preparation of a suitable environment for implementation of the expected EU requirements for evaluation of sustainable management in agriculture and forestry, more precisely to the preparation of an evaluation classification scheme (the Taxonomy) for private companies with obligation to perform and publish such evaluation as well as for financial institutions and investors. Based on the analysis of appropriate data (IS RESTEP, other public or private data), LCA, carbon or water footprint methods etc. the project will create a methodology and a set of software tools for entrepreneurs and financial institutions. The part of the project will also lead to a complex material for the Ministry of Agriculture to facilitate the establishment of the whole taxonomy system.
The IEEP team will focus on institutional analysis and impact assessment of the implementation of the EU Taxonomy in the field of agriculture. Therefore, an analysis of potential conflicts and barriers related to the implementation of the sustainable agriculture classification system will be carried out in relation to key actors (MoA, MoE, farmers, credit and insurance providers, investors, etc.) and the overall impacts of the implementation will be evaluated in relation to the resulting draft sustainable agriculture classification system in the form of a document similar to the RIA reports.

Researcher in charge:

Jan Macháč, Martin Špaček, Jan Brabec, Eliška Mičová, Lenka Zaňková (Zemková), Marek Hekrle

In cooperation with:

Czech University of Life Science Prague and other partners

Project:

Assessment of the feasibility of permanent limits for the discharge of wastewater into surface waters and their cost proportionality (Municipal and Industrial Wastewater treatment plants in Roztoky)

Provider:

Veolia Česká republika, a.s.

Investigator:

IREAS centrum, s.r.o.

Project duration: 

2020-2021

Description:

The subject of the study is a comprehensive assessment of the cost proportionality and feasibility of permanent limits for the discharge of wastewater into surface waters at the Roztoky Industrial and Municipal WWTP. The study analyses the available technological options for wastewater treatment with respect to economic and environmental aspects and requirements for the best available technologies (BAT).

Researcher in charge:

Project:

Flood insurance in the areas of Skadar/Shkoder Lake – Buna/Bojana River, and Struga in Ohrid Lake

Provider:

Global Water Partnership Mediterranean

Investigator:

DHI Hungary Limited Liability Company

Project duration: 

2020-2021

Description:

The objective of this project was to assess the feasibility of introducing flood/natural disasters insurance as one of a suite of flood risk transfer mechanisms for the basin and provide clear recommendations on what would be required for full development and implementation of a basin-wide insurance scheme, by undertaking studies in pilot areas which are among those at highest risk of flooding in the Drin Basin i.e. the Skadar/Shkodër, Buna/Bojana, and Struga areas.

Members of the e-academia network joined the project as external suppliers and were responsible for conducting a survey of willingness to pay for insurance, as well as willingness to contribute to the implementation of measures and willingness to subsidize insurance schme from the private sector.

Researcher in charge:

Project:

Impact assessment of the newly prepared / adopted legislation in the field of Water Supply and Sewerage on household income

Submitter:

Ernst & Young, s. r. o.

Invetigator:

IREAS centrum, s. r. o.

Project duration: 

4/2016-9/2016

Description:

The aim of the study was to comprehensively evaluate the impacts of each changes proposals to the water and sewerage legislation, which are based primarily on the requirements of the Water Framework Directive (Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council No. 2000/60/EC). The new legislation proposals include changes in the permissible values and fees for surface/groundwater consumption, definition of emission limits in waste water and restricted utilization of WWTP sludge on farmland. Planned changes in the law would affect the price of water and thus the final consumers – households. The study focused on analysing the impact of legislative changes on the lowest-income households, while taking the regional disparities into account (household income, water and sewerage prices). The analysis also included the magnitude of the municipality, the catchment area to which it belongs in the case of surface water abstraction, the current status of WWTPs and other variables which vary by region. Overall, impacts for more than 50 municipalities in all regions of the Czech Republic were modelled. A detailed model based on the current status and the water and sewerage level was created for each city. Subsequently, individual partial amendments to the legislation were introduced to the model, which led to the calculation of additional costs and thus the increase in the water and sewerage costs

Conclusions:

By carrying out the analysis it was found that the adoption of the planned legislation would have an impact on the increase of the share of water and sewerage expenditures on lowest-income households falling with the first decile (with income up to CZK 6 000 per person) from an average of 4.09 % by 2015 to 4.56 % in 2023 after the adoption of all planned and forthcoming legislative changes. For households with incomes between CZK 6 000 and 8 000 would this ratio increase from the original 2.81 % to 3.42 %. The envisaged changes would result in household budgets being burdened on average by 0.4-0.5 % of total revenues. The analysis further showed that the most significant effect on the increase in water and sewerage costs would be the setting of emission limits for waste water discharges where a number of currently used sewage treatment plants would have to undergo extensive refurbishment to technologically achieve the level required by law.

Researcher in charge:

Jan Macháč ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ), Lenka Zemková and Kristýna Rybová

Download:

Part of the results was presented and published in the conference proceedings: MACHÁČ, J.; ZEMKOVÁ, L. How much extra will households pay for environmental improvement? Impacts of water and sewerage legislation in preparation on incomes of the poorest households in the South Bohemian Region. In Matějová, L. (ed.) Proceedings of the 21st International Conference Current Trends in Public Sector Research 2017. Brno: Masaryk University, 2017. pp. 305-312. ISSN 2336-1239. ISBN 978-80-210-8448-3

Project:

The cash flow potential analysis of the Operational Programme Enterprise and Innovation for Competitiveness according to applicants' size: The optimization suggestion according to cost effectiveness and thematic goals

Národní centrum energetických úspor, z. s.

IREAS Energy, s. r. o.
IEEP, Institute for Economic and Environmental Policy, Faculty of Social and Economic Studies, J. E. Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem
Department of Management and Economics, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, CTU in Prague

Project duration:

12/2015–3/2016

Description:

The main goal of this study was to conduct an impact assessment of the limited financial allocation for large enterprises in Operational Programme Enterprise and Innovation for Competitiveness (in Czech OPPIK). According to the decision of the European Commission (C 2015, 3039) the support of large enterprises can reach (after considering all exceptions and other circumstances) only less than 30 % of this operational programme's financial allocation. This restriction threatens the ability to use spendable funds of the programme to reach its goals. One of these goals is to reach substantial energy savings thanks to specific goals 3.2 and 3.5. The ex-post analysis of the projects funded in the last programming period (2007–2013) was conducted including the calculation of the probable effects of OPPIK with the given rules of the current programme on both small and large enterprises in this programming period (2014–2020). The analysis of absorption capacity was also conducted for some priority axes and legal correctness analysis of the current OPPIK's rules.

Conclusions:

The main conclusions can be summarized as follows: reduction of the support for large enterprises is not reasonable, because: a) it impedes effective reaching of the given and authorized OPPIK’s goals, b) it impedes the support of SME’s that are included in the definition of large enterprises and c) it is against the legal framework (par. 3, Regulation no. 1301/2013). The institute of the “Programme Change”, regulated in art. 30, Regulation 1303/2013, can be used as a possible corrective measure of this legal contradiction with the EU regulation. With better adjustment of the programme from the viewpoint of both small and large enterprise support it would be possible to reach significantly higher effects (especially in energy saving), than it is predicted by OPPIK’s programme document, namely in final energy consumption savings as large as 28, 4 PJ per year (instead of the current prediction of 17, 5 PJ) and in primary energy savings as large as 10, 9 PJ per year instead of the current 6, 5 PJ per year (40% more).

Researchers
in charge:

Ondřej Vojáček, Jan Macháč, Jiří Louda, Lenka Zemková, Ladislav Sobotka, Petr Krautwurm

Project:

Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) of conceptual model of price regulation in water supply

Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic

IREAS centrum, s. r. o.

9–11/2014

Description:

Over the last 25 years, regulations in water supply have steadily developed. In the 1990s, inter alia, waterworks in the Czech Republic were privatised,  approved by City Assemblies. Consequently, 5,900 water management companies and approximately 2,500 operators of various sizes, governance model and ownership structure were founded and currently act in the market. From the standpoint of individual municipalities, development characterized by significant heterogeneity can be observed. In many cases, the infrastructure is underfostered and even the control role of authorities, owners and operators are not sufficient. Within the Regulatory Impact Assessment, two different scenarios and the current state of regulation were examined.

The costs of proposed scenarios and their benefits were examined during the RIA performance. Considering all identified problems of the current situation and assessed proposal of their solution, a new alternative scenario was recommended. This scenario reinforces the Ministry of Agriculture´s role as well as cooperation with other departments, Government Office, Union of Towns and Municipalities, accomplished by establishment of a Cooperation Council.

The aim was to achieve the sustainability of Water main and Sewerage systems infractructure, creating sufficient reserves for continuous renewal of Water main and Sewerage systems, and ensuring high-quality, smooth and reliable supply of drinking water for customers and wastewater treatment at reasonable prices. 

Project:

Pilot Counterfactual Impact Evaluation of the OP HRE, measure 1.1

Submitter:

Ministry of Labour Affairs of the Czech Republic

Invetigator:

IREAS centrum, s. r. o.

Project duration: 

5/2011-12/2013

Description:

The Operational Programme Human Resources and Employment (OP HRE) in its measure 1.1 is oriented to business assistance in the field of human resources development. There have been assisted thousands of Czech firms.

The objective of the project is to conduct of a rigorous application of counterfactual impact evaluation (CIE) to answer the following questions:

1) What was the actual causal effect/impact of the intervention on assisted projects from OP HRE 1.1 in comparison with the counterfactual situation without the intervention? What was the effect/impact on the competitiveness of companies (e.g.: growth in sales and profit), business investments in employee training, staff turnover, business growth expressed as newly created jobs.
2) Are there any significant differences in effect on some groups of supported enterprises? If so, what?
3) What is the mechanism of effect of the call on supported company? Why intervention is (not) work?

The project is not only about implementation of the counterfactual analysis, but also about processing this pilot evaluation as a case study for evaluation community in the Czech Republic. Then, it helps to identify areas of intervention of EU funds suitable for application of the CIE in the Czech Republic.

For main outputs of the project please follow the link: http://cie.vse.cz