Proceedings from the 5th Nordic Environmental Assessment Conference Reykjavik, Iceland, 25 – 26 August 2003. The focus of the 5th Nordic conference on Environmental Assessment, held during the period, 24-26 August 2003 in Reykjavik, Iceland was 'Planning for sustainable development – the practice and potential of Environmental Assessment'. The primary aims of the conference were to describe, analyze and discuss the role of Environmental Assessment with respect to planning and the political goal of sustainable development. The conference aimed to highlight experience thus far, as well as providing a forum for the showcasing of emerging issues with regard to the assessment of policies plans and programmes through SEA and the assessment of projects in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Furthermore, the theoretical bases and assumptions of environmental assessment were also expected to be explored, in particular with regard to the existing theories of planning and policy analysis and to recent developments in the field of planning theories with relevance to the impact assessment field.