The future of impact assessment: problems, solutions and recommendations

ABSTRACT

This contribution explores key sociological and policy challenges facing impact assessment in the 21st century. In so doing, it identifies three trends that will shape the future of IA theory, policy and practice: a shift from a project-by-project approach to better accommodation of cumulative impacts; increased cross-border policymaking to address shared issues and in recognition of natural resources as planetary resources; and the development of increased and improved methods of community-based SIA that radiate out from communities’ perspectives, as opposed to overlaying project perspectives onto a community.

KEYWORDS:

• Cumulative impact assessment
• transnational governance
• policy
• community-based
• social impact assessment

Introduction

Impact assessment in the 21st century is in flux and under pressure. IA scholars, practitioners and policymakers are striving to ensure the accuracy, effectiveness and enforceability of impact assessments to support sustainable development and intergenerational justice (Esteves et al. 2012; Morgan 2012; Schlosberg and Collins 2014). They are doing so within increasingly complex environmental, economic, social and policy contexts (Fischer 2017). This situation means that the data and advice delivered through IA is now more crucial than ever, with ramifications stretching well beyond assessment reports or jurisdictional policies. Indeed, the decisions that our generation takes today make us accountable not only to our contemporaries, but to our children, their children; our collective future.

In this contribution to the IAPA Special Issue on ‘Impact Assessment for the 21st Century – What future?’, I would like to turn our attention to the sociological and policy aspects of these dilemmas. I do so to narrow and focus the discussion, and also in deference to the humble expertise on which I, as a social and policy scientist, can legitimately draw. Although the instructive examples offered here are derived primarily from social impact assessment (SIA) and environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA), I hope they will resonate with others’ experiences. The challenges identified demand our attention in order to positively shape the future of IA in this century. Three solutions are suggested to support these efforts:

• shift from project-by-project appraisals to ones that more readily accommodate cumulative impacts

• increase cross-boundary policymaking to address shared issues and in recognition of natural resources as planetary resources

• develop increased and improved methods of community-based IA that radiate out from communities’ perspectives, as opposed to overlaying project perspectives onto a community.

In the sections that follow, I briefly detail each of these recommendations, their rationales for being and provide illustrative, if not generalizable, examples.

Recommendation 1: shift from project-by-project appraisals to more cumulative impact assessment

Despite contemporary geopolitical positions that would cleave us from one-another, the world is, without question, more interconnected in the 21st century than at any time in our species’ relatively short history. This interconnection raises new challenges and considerations for IA (Sinclair et al. 2017), especially as it sees undertakings like China’s US$1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI extends the reach of governments into other territories via delivery of major engineering projects, on land and at sea. Here, cumulative impacts and policy governance relate to transport, energy infrastructure, ports, urban development and the extraction of natural resources, with projects impacting health, environment, economy, culture and society. Related governance concerns range well beyond nation-state borders. In the case of BRI, for instance, there is an urgent need to understand the cumulative social effects of an ascending Chinese state investing in less developed countries and, in certain instances, taking ownership of assets previously held by the state (Bice and Lauderes 2018).

Understanding the risks, opportunities and effects of BRI and other transnational initiatives requires a broad-based perspective and a concerted attempt to identify and understand cumulative impacts and their cross-border management. Within the IA ‘family of approaches’, complementary and closely related cumulative impact assessment (CIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) are especially important to this recommendation (Fundingsland Tetlow and Hanusch 2012).

While the BRI is a stand-out example of the growing need for CIA and SEA (Huang et al. 2017), it is certainly not the only one. Across the globe, such large (and largely government-led) initiatives raise critical questions for IA. How might we understand the combined social and environmental impacts and benefits of rapidly delivered infrastructure, across regions (Ascensão et al. 2018)? To what extent do public–private partnerships (PPPs) of this type foster ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ or encourage governments to establish projects for which they do not yet have maintenance capacity, resulting in unintended consequences (Hodge et al. 2017)? And, if as in the case of BRI, one government’s investments outside its borders increase oil and gas exploitation rates in other countries, who should bear the social and environmental responsibility of the consequent emissions? Inherent in each of these questions is a requirement to determine ways to push beyond the usual, project-by-project, state-bounded nature of traditional IAs. There is an urgent necessity to view initiatives like BRI on a cumulative (and potentially global) scale, as opposed to project-by-project.

Similar cumulative effects challenges arise to a smaller but no less important degree when we consider the interactions of various developing industries (e.g. mining, forestry, wind farms) on particular communities or indigenous populations within one country or well-defined region. For the Sami people of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia for instance, the simultaneous encroachment of a variety of industries results in the failure of existing permitting processes to protect local interests, although ESIAs are completed for each independent project (Larsen et al. 2017). This example illuminates the experiences of many communities (indigenous and non-indigenous) worldwide. Farmers, winemakers and thoroughbred horse breeders in Australia’s bucolic but coal-filled Upper Hunter Valley express concerns similar to the Sami, exposed as they are to a long-standing fossil fuel industry managed primarily via project-by-project impact assessments (Bice 2016). Situations like these exemplify both the need for CIA and SEA, and the failure of impact assessment policy and regulation to deal effectively with the ways communities genuinely experience projects, a concern to which I will now turn.

Recommendation 2: increase cross-boundary policymaking and transnational governance

The issues discussed here are necessarily thorny and intertwined. It is impossible to consider the cumulative impacts of a large-scale initiative such as BRI, the effects of encroaching but disparate industries on an indigenous population, or the experiences of communities in a resource-intensive region without also considering related implications for cross-boundary policymaking (i.e. policymaking across industries, organizations, project types or jurisdictions, taking a system-level scale into account). Such policies and related transnational governance will play a central role in 21st century impact assessment and management, as governments ‘generate a deliberative space in which diverse but collective responses to multinational challenges are formed’ (Bice et al. 2018). For IA the UNECE Espoo (EIA) Convention, European SEA Directive and the SEA Protocol of the Espoo Convention are all clear examples of existing efforts to manage transnational impacts (Marsden 2011; Fundingsland Tetlow and Hanusch 2012). But greater effort and more widespread adoption of such approaches are needed.

To grossly oversimplify, contemporary policy science offers three important ideas to support increased cross-boundary policymaking and transnational governance: complexity theory, transnational governance and the role of problem definition. First, in order to be effective in an interconnected 21st century environment, today’s policies must become more inter-related and better equipped to deal with unintended or cross-boundary consequences (Boulton 2010). Such increased complexity requires a system-level approach (Cairney 2012), arguably the policymaker’s equivalent of CIA/SEA. A primary challenge, however, is determining the actual level at which such an approach could be legitimately and effectively designed and implemented. This is especially challenging for IA, where assessments have historically been required and regulated relative to specific projects’ plans and related approvals for their application or expansion (Morgan 2012). The situation is complicated by a tendency for policymakers to adopt ‘instrumental learning’, as opposed to more strategic, forward-thinking ‘political learning’ (Radaelli 2009).

Recent advancements in thinking about ‘global governance’ or transnational governance may be of assistance here. While scholarly debate rages as to what ‘governance’ truly entails, there is agreement that the process is hybrid (i.e. involving government and non-government actors in non-traditional ways), multi-jurisdictional and embraces a plurality of stakeholders (Bevir 2011). In the field of Earth systems science, researchers are now drawing on this broader literature to advance the notion of ‘planetary boundaries’, calling for transnational governance decisions to be calibrated according to those scientifically identified ‘thresholds’ necessary to keep our planet within the International Panel for Climate Change’s ‘less than two-degree’ temperature rise (Steffen et al. 2015). Certain policy scientists now link the notion of governing planetary boundaries with achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (Hajer et al. 2015), offering a complex but helpful means for thinking about how we might better regulate and implement IA in a way that reflects the borderless impacts of many projects.

Finally, issues of problem definition and the problem with ‘wicked problems’ (Rittel and Webber 1973) must be addressed in order to achieve a systems-level approach to IA. In brief, wicked problems are those about which there is much disagreement as to what, exactly the problem is; which have no pre-determined or agreed solution; which face resource constraints and conflict in their redress; and which are complex, ambiguous and fluid (Roberts 2000). Policymakers’ loose application of the term ‘wicked problem’ is itself a major problem. Too often the term is employed to imply that a particular policy problem is unsolvable, too difficult or beyond the competencies or resources of a particular governing body. Climate change has, for some time now, been described as a wicked problem (Kurukulasuryia 2018). IA scholars and practitioners from diverse disciplines similarly use ‘wicked problems’ to define the issues their work seeks to address (e.g. Putters 2005; Lobos and Partidario 2014). But as (Meuleman 2015) rightly notes, ‘there are many ways of framing the same problem’.

The problem with wicked problems is that the concept is now too frequently being used as a throw-up-our-hands-in-defeat style gesture or a ‘not my problem’ problem. Climate change, for example, by the strict scholarly definition of wicked problems, is not a wicked problem. Science clearly identifies the problems to be addressed (e.g. ocean acidification, carbon emissions) and the actions that could be taken to do so (e.g. stop use of fossil fuels, transition to low or zero-carbon energy). Our problem is not wicked; it is that too few are willing to take responsibility and that unethical laggards continue to question the science and roll-back environmental standards for pursuit of ill-conceived, short-term economic gains.

At a global level, effective policymaking for IA will require better problem definition and agreement on the problems to be assessed or addressed in order to support systems-level approaches guided by transnational governance. At a local or regional level, the problem definitions driving requirements for assessments need to be redefined from project-based perspectives to community-based ones. This is the third challenge to which I will now briefly turn.

Recommendation 3: community-based assessments completed from communities’ perspectives

The preceding discussion illustrates the increasingly complex and interconnected nature of project and policy impacts, at local, regional and global levels. The first two recommendations highlight the need for IA to provide advice on these issues at more systemic (and sometimes even planetary) scales. Such a shift must be done conscientiously, with a commitment to balance a broad-scaled and strategic understanding of impacts while maintaining attention to experiences of local communities. At the end of the day, IA must begin and end with concerns for the lives of those most directly affected by a policy or project, local people. Research shows that where community perspectives are poorly understood, attempts to address social impacts and deliver local benefits frequently fail those communities (Bice 2013). A community-based approach is especially important if we are to address the situation in which large numbers of communities are experiencing the cumulative effects of intensive infrastructure and policy delivery in rapidly changing environments.

The McKinsey Global Institute identifies a US$57 trillion infrastructure need globally, and many countries are rapidly rolling out projects to fill this gap (Woetzel et al. 2016). Australia, for instance, is undergoing its most intensive period of infrastructure delivery, ever. Research into community engagement shows that a ‘social license to operate’ is the lynchpin to mitigate negative effects and reduce risks to communities within this intensive delivery context (Bice et al. 2019). A critical but relatively unexplored way to achieve this will be through community-based impact assessment (Watson et al. 2013). By this, I mean assessment conceived from the perspective of communities, far more sensitive to their needs and experiences than is possible via regulatory approaches that artificially parcel out impacts at a project scale.

Achieving more community-based approaches to impact assessment policy and practice will require three key steps. First, the system of assessment must be flipped to adopt a truly community-based perspective. Today, practice is slowly shifting. In Australia, at least, we are starting to see corporate and government interest in better understanding both ‘community baselines’ and communities’ experiences of intensive project delivery (Bice et al. 2019). Secondly, a philosophical shift in perspective is required. Access to a meaningful evidence-base to inform decision-making about a community’s future, incorporating systemic considerations, must be positioned as a human right. There are strong arguments to suggest that failure of governments to ensure such information is available may result in decisions that are ultimately harmful to local communities and to the planet.

Finally, IA data and reports must become more accessible, comparable and useful. Where data is publicly available it is often buried in reports hundreds of pages long, rife with technical jargon. Better ways to share pre-existing IA data among proponents and governments, and to deploy the resources necessary to extract ‘lessons learned’ from that data must be established. This may involve governments or other responsible parties investing in the resources necessary for such an undertaking. Australia’s ‘Next Generation Engagement Program’ is one such example (Next Generation Engagement Program 2019). Twenty-three industry partners are collaborating with the Australian National University to establish a world-first case database focused on community engagement with major infrastructure projects in an effort to distil lessons, generate guidelines and share relevant data at a systemic level. Ultimately such work can reduce risks to communities, while improving strategic planning and responses and reducing ‘consultation fatigue’. Arguably, this latter concern is an ethical matter for IA in an era of intensive project delivery (Baines et al. 2013).

Conclusion

History will view the early 21st century as a period of disruption, characterized by individuals and governments attempting to come to grips with unprecedented levels of interconnectivity, while simultaneously grappling with rising nationalism and the climate crisis. This context informs three central recommendations that can shape future IA policy and practice: improved assessment and management of cumulative impacts, stronger transnational governance and more community-focused assessments. For those who may be feeling discouraged by the challenges placed before us, I suggest a reflection on the ideas of English philosopher John Stuart Mill. ‘Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?’ (Macleod 2018). At least for Mill, the answer was, ‘probably not’. The IA community can perhaps take comfort that there remains much work to be done to advance the future of the practice in the 21st century. In relishing the challenge, we can more deeply appreciate the development and sustainability our breakthroughs of today can benefit tomorrow.