Analysis of the regulatory framework in megaprojects: The Social Impact Assessment (EVIS)

Abstract

Capitalist logic, understood as a holistic process that combines production, circulation, consumption and reproduction, is in a constant process of updating and transforming as it seeks to maintain and increase its rate of profit and not self- destruct in the process. In this sense, the megaprojects that are part of the development of renewable energies represent a clear example of the constant search by capital to create spaces of accumulation, without modifying the predatory relationship that it exerts on nature in general and rurality in particular.

Thus, this paper analyzes the legal framework in Mexico for regulating this type of megaproject in the social sphere, namely the Social Impact Assessment (EVIS), a document that private industry submits as a requirement to the Secretariat of Energy (SENER) to obtain a permit to establish a project that will produce energy based on renewable resources in the country.

This analysis identifies the methodological and practical weaknesses that this type of assessment presents and proposes guidelines so that both the project and its promoters have counterweights in the potentially affected society, through mechanisms that evaluate the changes created by the transformations in the physical space and the world of life of the communities near it.