Book excerpt: It has always been thought that some level of pollution and waste is unavoidable in development projects. But no one has made much effort to quantify and assess the extent of this sort of damage. In this book a group of analysts from the Asian Development Bank and from the East West Center propose a means of constructing useful economic evaluations of the impacts of development projects on the environments in which they are constructed. This study demands the systematic evaluation of all the intentional and unintentional consequences of development initiatives before they are determined upon. It is essential reading for development economists, analysts and bankers. Originally published in 1986