Equality impact assessment

An equality impact assessment (EqIA) is a process designed to ensure that a policy, project or scheme does not unlawfully discriminate against any protected characteristic.

The EqIA process aims to prevent discrimination against people who are members of a protected category. The Equality Act 2010 defines 9 protected characteristics:

Within the UK, EqIAs is a means of ensuring that the public sector equality duty is met. On 19 November 2012, then Prime Minister David Cameron announced that EqIAs would no longer be undertaken for government decisions.

Bainard, J., Jones, A., Bateman, I., Lovett, A. & Fallon, P. (2001) Modelling environmental equity: access to air quality in Birmingham, England Environment and Planning A 2002, volume 34, pages 695 – 716

Burningham, K. & Thrush, D. (2001) Local environmental concerns in disadvantaged neighbourhoods [1]

Capacity Global (2004) BME Communities Tackling Environmental and Social Inequalities [2]

Davies, A. and Binsted, A. (2007) Environmental Equity and Equality Impact Assessment in the United Kingdom (07-1568) - TRB Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM, TRB 86th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., January 2007 [3]

Friends of the Earth (2000) Pollution injustice [4]