Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP)

Website: http://www.hydrosustainability.org/

 

The Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum HSAF, a multi-stakeholder body with representatives from social and environmental NGOs (Oxfam, The Nature Conservancy, Transparency International, WWF), governments (China, Germany, Iceland, Norway, Zambia), commercial and development banks (Equator Principles Financial Institutions Group, The World Bank) and the hydropower sector represented by the IHA has been initiated by the International Hydropower Association (IHA) in cooperation with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in March 2008.

In a period of 2 ½ years the HSAF developed the Hydropower Sustainalility Assessment protocol (HSAP). In June 2011 the Protocol was officially launched in Brazil and is now governed by a multi-stakeholder council, comprising a governance committee and a management entity, the latter residing within IHA.
The protocol serves as an enhanced sustainability assessment tool to measure and guide performance in the hydropower sector. It allows the assessment of projects at four stages (early stage, preparation, implementation and operation). Projects are assessed across a range of aspects with scores from 1 to 5. The protocol not a standard but rather a voluntary scorecard by which the hydropower industry can assess the social and environmental performance of its projects. The assessment of projects with the protocol can only be carried out with a license from IHA.