From the website impattoambientale.it:

one of the main objects of attention from the public opinion, the local and central institutions is the impact that companies and projects have on the environment. The environmental assessments, delicate and complex, are constitute by multiple procedures and methods.

For this reason the main procedures of environmental assessments are institutionalized for years:

• VIA (in english, Environmental Impact Assessment)
  
  
• VAS (in english, Strategic Environmental Assessment)
  
  
• I.P.P.C. (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) a new strategy, common throughout the European Union, to increase the "environmental performances" of facilities subject to authorization
  
  
• AIA (in english Integrated Environmental Authorization)

Other evaluations, instead, are becoming it (Analysis of the Life Cycle, L.C.A. and L.C.E.A.).

The assessment of the environmental impact assures to the clients the fulfillment of legal obligations and, at the same time, the quality of production cycles and disposal systems.
The evaluation of the environmental impact is ESSENTIAL for the conduct of any authorization process, as regard existing systems and also and especially in all new projects.