Advancing beyond project-scale Social Impact Assessment of transport infrastructure: insights into contextual constraints on practice

ABSTRACT

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) facilitates sustainable and equitable consideration of social issues in transport infrastructure planning. However, SIA practitioners face significant constraints in practice. Good SIA is effective in contributing to institutional mechanisms for holding political, bureaucratic and commercial processes accountable for social outcomes. This paper aims to better understand constraints to the assessment and management of social impacts. Drawing on interviews with expert infrastructure professionals involved in projects in Sydney (Australia), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), and internationally, this paper highlights weaknesses in the implementation of SIA, technical engineering-, time- and cost-focused project management practices, and poorly regulated, politically-driven urban governance and planning processes as key constraints. The findings suggest that overcoming those constraints cannot be the sole responsibility of EIA and SIA practitioners and there is more to be considered than practice alone. Instead, this requires an integrated approach across multi-level governance scales and the lifecycle of projects. This paper concludes that for good practice SIA to be realised as intended, systemic adjustments are needed in the planning of urban transport infrastructure, to address constraints and ensure that social impacts are considered in strategic stages and prioritised equally against other project and urban planning issues in decision-making.

KEYWORDS:

• Social Impact Assessment
• transport infrastructure
• Environmental Impact Assessment
• megaprojects

Introduction

In established urban democracies, considerable emphasis is placed on the social value generated by transport infrastructure projects. Societal participation in urban planning, and project planning and approval processes supported by legislation are the norm. The public is often engaged to voice their diverse opinions on a wide range of political, planning and social issues (Priemus and Van Wee 2013; Sturup 2016; Parsons 2020; Mottee et al. 2020a). Conflict often arises when there are tensions about state priorities for public expenditure and unjust decisions at the project level (Legacy et al. 2014; Hanna et al. 2016; Legacy 2018). Public reaction to governments’ failures in delivering infrastructure that meet equity expectations, societal needs and environmental standards has motivated planners to reconsider how urban planning practice moderates outcomes through both urban governance and project-scale management (Legacy et al. 2014; Sager 2016). Some planning practices have shifted from top-down approaches relying on technical expertise, to collaborative bottom-up modes of practice that engage and empower citizens to participate in urban planning and project assessments to better address social issues (Healey 1999, 2003; Sager 2002; Woltjer 2002; Howitt 2003; Legacy et al. 2018; Homsy et al. 2019). Two settings where this can be seen are in Sydney (Australia) and Amsterdam (The Netherlands): in the collaborative planning work of the Greater Sydney Commission (GSC) to create a more sustainable and liveable city (GSC 2017); and in the activities of Amsterdam Municipality prioritising the inclusion of citizens in its smart city and strategic planning (Capra 2018).

Environmental assessment systems are an internationally well-established element of planning processes and the assessment and management of transport infrastructure project approvals. Initially legislated in the USA’s National Environmental Planning Act 1969 to address biophysical environmental issues, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been legislated in many countries and expanded to include consideration of social issues through Social Impact Assessment (SIA) (Vanclay 2020). In its integrated form, EIA and SIA are often referred to as Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA). However, SIA as a standalone process facilitates consideration of a range of sustainability, equity, and social issues. Despite the availability of authoritative international guidelines (see Vanclay et al. 2015), SIA is neither consistently mandated in legislation nor applied in the processes and procedures for infrastructure planning, even across established democracies (Pope et al. 2013; Mottee and Howitt 2018; Gulakov et al. 2020; Parsons 2020). SIA in this context, if required at all, is often limited to an EIA ‘add-on’ technical study as part of a statutory planning process, which diminishes its potential to improve social outcomes. SIA and EIA practitioners face significant constraints on implementing good practice that hold political, bureaucratic and commercial processes accountable for social, economic and environmental outcomes. The research presented in this paper is necessary to improve understanding of these constraints on practice and contribute to much-needed knowledge on how to overcome them.

This paper integrates discussion of recent literature that addresses good practice (Vanclay 2003; Esteves et al. 2012; Vanclay et al. 2015) and case study material from previous research in Sydney and Amsterdam (see Mottee and Howitt 2018; Mottee et al. 2020a, 2020b, 2020c) to better understand the constraints affecting assessment and management of social impacts in transport infrastructure project assessment and approval processes. It introduces insights from critical reflections on practice by key infrastructure professionals and academics. The paper identifies weaknesses in the implementation of SIA, highly technical engineering, time- and cost-focused project management practices and poorly regulated, politically-driven urban governance and planning processes as key constraints. It concludes that overcoming those constraints cannot be the sole responsibility of EIA and SIA practitioners and there is more to be considered than practice alone. Addressing systemic failure requires integration across multi-level governance scales, from project to urban and national, throughout the life cycle of transport infrastructure.

Background: constraints on good professional practice

SIA practice

Social impacts can be broadly defined as any issue associated with a project or plan that affects (either directly or indirectly) people or those stakeholders with an interest (Vanclay et al. 2015). SIA is recognised as a process used to analyse, monitor and manage social impacts (Vanclay 2003, p.6). While international guidance on good practice in SIA is consistent (see e.g. Vanclay 2003, 2020; IFC 2012; Vanclay et al. 2015; Kvam 2018; World Bank 2018), constraints on delivering such standards in practice are diverse and widely discussed (O’Faircheallaigh 2009; Cashmore et al. 2010; Pope et al. 2013; Arce-Gomez et al. 2015; Banhalmi-Zakar et al. 2018; Parsons et al. 2019; Antonson and Levin 2020; Gulakov et al. 2020; Parsons and Luke 2021).

Poor understanding of social impacts during planning and decision-making about infrastructure among politicians, engineers and economists is recognised as a source of much difficulty for SIA practitioners in implementing good practice (Mottee and Howitt 2018; Parsons 2020). As Mottee and Howitt (2018) identify, political decision-making has greater influence than SIA practice on the social outcomes of an urban transport project and whether it achieves social policy goals. Along with others, they suggest that politicisation of planning processes by ignoring, manipulating or misrepresenting data from assessment reports seriously constrains professional SIA practice in many settings (Flyvbjerg et al. 2003; Cashmore et al. 2010; Legacy 2016; Parsons and Luke 2021).

Community support is often central to political advocacy for urban transport projects. This leads to the politicisation of engagement with impacted populations in early strategic planning phases of metropolitan transport projects (Legacy 2016, 2018). Public and political support for a project, combined with a strong business case, secure financial support, and the strategic justification of the project in the public interest, and are necessary for successful social outcomes. Transparent verification of those outcomes, however, relies on sound post-approval monitoring and follow-up that engages the affected community in the process. The absence of follow-up monitoring of the actual social impacts of projects or testing of predicted impacts against realised outcomes is widely recognised as a weakness in many planning and assessment systems (Storey and Noble 2005; O’Faircheallaigh 2009; Franks and Vanclay 2013; Arce-Gomez et al. 2015; Aucamp and Woodborne 2020). Weaknesses in monitoring and follow-up procedures, as identified in the literature, are a constraint to the implementation of good practice (see e.g. Arts et al. 2001; Storey and Jones 2003; Morrison-Saunders and Arts 2004; Storey and Noble 2005; O’Faircheallaigh 2009; Franks and Vanclay 2013; Arce-Gomez et al. 2015; Mottee and Howitt 2018; Mottee et al. 2020a).

Transport planning and project management

Transport planning typically relies on technical engineering models to solve problems (Brömmelstroet and Bertolini 2011; Bertolini 2012; Jones and Lucas 2012). Over-reliance on such models means that project proposals, justifications and assessments often overlook – or poorly conceptualise – social issues, as these models require the quantification of issues that are often intangible and difficult to measure (Parsons 2020; Mottee et al. 2020a; Lucas et al. 2021). Reliance on these technical engineering approaches, including economic assessments (e.g. Cost-Benefit Analysis – CBA) as part of the business case developed during strategic assessments of transport megaprojects (Beukers et al. 2012), introduces a further constraint on delivering good practice SIA in such projects (Chamseddine and Ait Boubkr 2020). Poor conceptualisation and assessment of social issues in early project stages influences management strategies for addressing social issues and community engagement in construction, operational and closure phases of a project (Lucas et al. 2021). Often transport engineers and strategic planners focus on building transport solutions between ‘A to B’, and quantifiable mobility and accessibility criteria (‘predict-and-provide’); an approach that poorly conceptualises the distribution of social benefits and costs in complex, dynamic urban environments (Banister 2008; Mottee et al. 2020a). Integrating social research about the nature and consequences of a project’s impact on transport planning decisions that rely on this ‘predict-and-provide approach’ is often difficult and even contested (Bertolini 2012; Switzer 2019).

The extended timeframes of transport megaprojects generate complexities that are difficult to manage as social change occurs over time. For example, the planning fallacy that asserts that project managers under-estimate costs and risks, and over-estimate benefits (see Flyvbjerg 2014, 2016, 2017), creates a risk that the costs and risks of poorly-conceptualised social dimensions of project impacts are amplified, as commitment to and investment in specific technical configurations develop over the extended project timeframes. Practitioners often affirm these as factors which constrain assessment and management of social impacts for projects on which they had worked. For example, in Amsterdam’s North-South Metro Line [Noord-Zuidlijn – NZL] metro project, benefits were over-promoted, and risks downplayed in the early stages of the project (see Mottee et al. 2020a, 2020b). In the same project, community inputs were diluted during the project planning process. Environmental and Stakeholder Engagement professionals on the NZL project team found it difficult to obtain the necessary top-management support to adequately consider social issues raised by the community. These included issues such as the prolonged impact of the project on their mental health and wellbeing during the delayed project timeframes. When technical failures during construction (resulting in damage to homes) occurred, this, combined with growing concerns among many affected residents, resulted in a complete suspension of works until the issues could be adequately addressed.

Strategic urban planning and managing social issues

Another project that highlights constraints on good practice is the case of Sydney’s South-West Rail Link (SWRL) (see Mottee et al. 2020c). An SIA was completed in the early strategic planning phases, using the project’s initial design as the basis for assessment. During the scoping of the EIA the regulator decided that social issues did not need to be further considered for the final project design. As a consequence, social impacts identified in stakeholder consultation undertaken during the assessment of the final project design were not addressed through the project’s social impact monitoring and management strategies. Practitioners also found it difficult to apply good practice SIA standards for addressing the cumulative social impacts of the project with the future housing development foreshadowed in the region’s South-West Growth Centre (SWGC), which the SWRL was designed to service. The poor synchronization between the development of the SWGC and the SWRL, meant that the community that would be serviced and affected by the SWRL as delivered,was not yet present to be consulted or to express concerns regarding mitigation strategies and cumulative impacts.

Even though monitoring for other environmental aspects was mandated in the SWRL’s development approval conditions, there was no requirement to monitor social impacts (Mottee et al. 2020c). With no commitment to identifying, monitoring, managing or mitigating social impacts, it appeared that social issues were effectively absent from the project’s approval process and conditions. When social impacts emerged, these remained unmanaged, with unforeseen consequences arising (for example, an increase in traffic and illegal parking around the new train stations, which impacted way of life and accessibility for local residents), as the SWRL project progressed into its operational phase. As such, there was an absence of governance processes at project and urban scales to support appropriate recognition of social impacts post-approval, and in EIA follow-up strategies to manage the project’s impacts.

As Pinto et al. (2019) and Morrison-Saunders et al. (2021) identified, EIA follow-up and impact management can facilitate public accountability of decision-making in all levels of government when implemented effectively (see also Arts 1998). However, there is limited capacity for project-scale assessment reports to influence post-approval changes in either project design or the political, economic, environmental or social context in which projects develop. Although good practice standards require assessments to avoid pursuing pre-defined approval outcomes, the realpolitik in many planning systems ensures that the complex dynamics which influence the social impacts of infrastructure megaprojects, and the policy directions that arise from them, are treated as outside the scope of project-focused assessments (Howitt 2003). Many key influences on the social impacts of these projects are not directly related to project-scale dynamics, but better addressed in terms of urban system-scale dynamics, which, in turn, are better understood through post-approval monitoring and follow-up assessment and response (Pinto et al. 2019). In jurisdictions without political and administrative commitment to ESIA, monitoring and follow-up, the adaptive management strategies proposed in reports to mitigate effects over time are even more easily overlooked or even dismissed in politicised decision-making.

Mismatches in spatial planning objectives, public policy goals and financial priorities within and between various levels of government persist and constrain the delivery of good practice SIA for urban transport megaprojects. This sort of mismatch is also reflected in how social impacts are experienced by society in time and space and subsequently create a tension between different levels of governance in assigning accountability for managing impacts. A common characteristic of transport planning in cities is the inclusion of projects in a whole-of-city-scale strategy or strategic integrated development plan. Integrated development planning and decision-making, and assessment of projects in The Netherlands and Australia, operate within a context of multi-level governance (Heeres et al. 2012; Veeneman and Mulley 2018). This model of governance is also common in other jurisdictions where planners and governments at different political scales (local/municipal, regional, national) collaborate to address issues experienced across spatial scales (Barca et al. 2012). The basis of multi-level governance theory is that the key stakeholders for policy development act at many levels, and at all temporal and spatial scales (Daniell and Kay 2017; Veeneman and Mulley 2018). As Veeneman and Mulley (2018) identified, business cases for infrastructure are financed and led by federal or state levels of government, but social impacts are experienced at city and neighbourhood levels (Howitt 2003) that are managed by local level governments (Fensham 2015). This brings about fragmentation of governance and accountability in political decision-making and leads to slippage of financial and management burdens from the state level to the local level (Daniell and Kay 2017), which has limited resources and often little jurisdiction to monitor and manage social impacts.

Methodology

This paper considers data drawn from critical reflections by infrastructure professionals collected in focus groups, workshops and interviews (see Table 1). Semi-structured interviews elicited in-depth insight from academic and practice experts involved in cases in Sydney (Australia) and Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Focus groups and workshops involved Impact Assessment (IA) practitioners, academics, policymakers, engineers and urban planners to invite broader reflection and synergistic engagement across jurisdictions from a wider pool of participants, while allowing a free-flowing open discussion of the broader issues.

Table 1. Interviews, focus groups/workshops

Attendees (#)(code)	Approx. Duration	Location, Year	Topics
Expert (Academics & Professionals) Interviews with individual professionals (n = 6)(A)	1–1.5 hr	Europe & Telephone 2018–2019	Assessment and management of the social impacts of transport ESIA in urban planning and decision-making Constraints and challenges in the assessment, management, follow-up and monitoring of Social Impacts.
International ESIA Practitioners Focus Group (n = 5)(B)	1.5 hr	IAIA Annual Conference (IAIA18), Durban, South Africa, 2018	Assessing & Managing Social Impacts International ESIA Practices & Limitations EIA Follow-up Strategic & Transport Planning (see Mottee et al. 2020c)
Dutch EIA Professionals, Urban Planners & Policymakers Focus Group (n = 5)(C)	2 hrs	Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2018	Assessing & Managing Social Impacts Dutch ESIA Practices Strategic & Transport Planning
Australian SIA Practitioners Workshop (n = 12)(D)	1 hr	EIANZ Annual Conference, Sydney, Australia, 2018	SIA Practices in Australia Constraints to implementing good practice
Sydney-based Urban Planners/IA Professionals (Government) Workshop (n = 7)(E)	1.5 hrs	Sydney, Australia, 2019	ESIA Practices Urban Planning, Approvals & Regulation Strategic & Transport Planning South-West Rail Link (see Mottee et al. 2020b)
Amsterdam-based Urban Planners, Stakeholder Engagement and Environmental professionals, Engineers, Project Managers (Government) Workshop (n = 9)(F)	2.5 hrs	Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2019	Transport and Urban Planning at the Municipal Level Project Management & Stakeholder Engagement North-South Metro Line (see Mottee et al. 2020a)

Between 2017 and 2019, five focus groups/workshops and six semi-structured interviews were conducted in accordance with ethical principles for social research (Vanclay et al. 2013) and under a protocol approved by Macquarie University. Participants were invited because of their expertise in EIA, SIA and/or transport and infrastructure development internationally, identified in the literature review as disciplinary experts, or were known to the researcher through their involvement in practice or in the case studies for previous research (see Mottee et al. 2020a, 2020b, 2020c). Consistent with the approved research protocol, the identity of participants and their employers has been kept anonymous in this paper for privacy reasons.

All interviews were conducted in English (Table 1). Many participants had extensive international experience. Participants were asked to critically reflect on planning practices for assessing and managing social impacts in their experience and suggest any solutions to constraints identified. A snowball sampling technique was used to recruit further participants for the focus groups and workshops (Stratford and Bradshaw 2016). The main difference between the focus groups and the workshops was the number of participants recruited, as the focus groups were smaller, thus allowing for further in-depth discussion with fewer voices. The final selection of participants for the focus groups and workshops was determined by their personal interest in the research topic, and their availability to attend either the 2018 Environmental Institute of Australia and New Zealand (EIANZ) or the 2018 International Association of Impact Assessment (IAIA) annual conferences (for focus groups/workshops B and D), or a workshop at or close by to their place of work (for Government focus groups/workshops C, E and F). In total 37 people participated, with two involved in more than one session. All sessions were conducted in English. Where Dutch participants were included, a facilitator fluent in both the Dutch and English led the discussion in case translation was needed.

There were some limitations in the selected research design. The availability of participants and practical considerations in arranging the sessions (such as the venue, location or timing at conferences), limited the attendance at the focus groups and workshops. This potentially meant that those in attendance may not have had experiences that are fully representative of ESIA practitioners, and planning and infrastructure professionals in every urban context. Given the title and description of the research used to recruit them, those who participated were more likely to be those who are strong advocates for change and improvement. However, the informed consent process and ethics protocol adopted ensured participants felt comfortable to participate and were aware of the nature of the research. The synergistic effects of the open discussion at the focus groups and workshops yielded richer sources of information than other methods with access to a greater number of participants (for example, surveys and questionnaires) would have done.

At the focus groups and workshops two to five questions or statements were proposed, covering the topics listed in (Table 1). During the interviews, focus groups and workshops extensive notes were taken and, in most cases, audio recordings made. Transcriptions were prepared or recordings were replayed several times to take further notes. Three key themes, identified in previous research as relevant to constraints on the assessment and management of social impacts, were applied as the analytical lens for the research:

1. SIA in practice,

2. Project management, and

3. Urban governance and planning.

Discussion of these themes is addressed in two phases. First the participants’ reflections on the nature of constraints on professional practice are considered, followed by discussion of their thoughts on how to address and overcome those constraints.

Professional perspectives I: constraints on practice

SIA in practice

Participants reflected on constraints to implementing SIA from their own experience, but also considered what good practice should look like in a context where SIA is not routinely applied, such as The Netherlands. Those working in The Netherlands emphasised that the technical and ‘objective’ focus set by the Dutch EIA legislation and guidelines was a significant constraint in implementing SIA. In the Dutch case, the structure and scoping of EIAs typically have a narrow focus, which does not include social issues or intergenerational justice, unless related to explicit health or environmental concerns, such as noise. This means that practitioners generally take a narrow focus using an ‘inventory’ of issues and in interpreting the definition of the ‘environment’. As one participant (Academic, A) noted, in The Netherlands it is often left to the project manager to consider social issues once a project has commenced construction.

Several participants from both the Australian and Dutch contexts noted that social issues were considered too late in planning, and a greater emphasis should be placed on their inclusion during the strategic design and business case development. Good practice guidance suggests that the SIA process should start even earlier than this, ‘as soon as the rumours begin’ about a possible project (Vanclay et al. 2015, p.iv). One participant (Planning Officer, E) suggested SIA should happen earlier as a condition of requesting funding from the treasury department of the government, rather than during the planning approval process. Australian practitioners (Workshop, D) also noted that timeframes were often rushed to write reports, as SIA perspectives were introduced to the project so late in planning stages or the proponent had come at the last minute as a result of a planning approval requirement, as one participant stated:

The briefs that we get to do SIA come in very late after concept design or after master plan has basically been done and it’s sometimes even like less than a month to write, sometimes two weeks to write an SIA. No in-community [on-the-ground] engagement. And usually compliance driven. So, it’s because the Council has said, “You need to do an SIA,” because it triggers a comprehensive SIA policy for example, if you use it as policy. [SIA practitioner, D]

Another participant (Planning Officer, C) noted in their experience there is a reluctance to do SIA and often applicants would only engage a consultant to complete a report when instructed to do so, sometimes even at the last moment, which contributes to this rush to complete it. Several participants (Workshop, D) also noted that often the quality of the report was reduced to a ‘tick-a-box’ on a Development Application form as clients wanted the report done quickly.

While the Vanclay et al. (2015) guidelines stipulate that stakeholder engagement should occur as part of good practice SIA, several participants noted that it was often difficult to engage the community, as they may be seen as non-experts in a technical process (see also Howitt 2003), or they may be difficult to identify and access, as those participating are not always those who will benefit:

Typically, it’s people accessing, responding who have time to participate in the IA … People with small kids, or whatever is the reason, they don’t have accessibility, so you have to make effort to reach them and it’s not sufficiently done mostly. [ESIA Practitioner, B]

However, one participant noted that too much emphasis is often placed on stakeholder and community engagement during urban planning and approvals as the only solution to managing social impacts:

I guess everyone kind of hangs their hat on stakeholder engagement and community engagement as being the way to solve social impacts, or how to get people to accept that they are going to be impacted regardless as it’s going ahead, so just deal with it because we told you about it in some ways. [SIA Practitioner, D]

As also identified in the literature (seeFranks and Vanclay 2013; Arce-Gomez et al. 2015), during the research participants frequently identified constraints to the implementation of good practice in the monitoring and management of social impacts. Although SIA reports may apply good practice and have management strategies allocated, participants noted that the constraint arose in the lack of follow-up.

Several participants identified an absence of evaluation and monitoring of mitigation strategies in practice, and a lack of regulation or accountability for inaction on follow-up reporting. Further, participants noted that, in the absence of mandated SIA and follow-up, it is difficult to regulate and monitor follow-up of management strategies (Marshall et al. 2005). A link was drawn to similar poor practices in the EIA process (Pinto et al. 2019) further exacerbating poor practices for SIA. Some participants asserted that for government projects only those of national interest had enough funding allocated for monitoring and/or there was a lack of knowledge within government on how to measure or regulate social impact management strategies. One participant (SIA Practitioner, D) noted that EIA practitioners establishing project-scale management plans may not have the training in SIA or the expertise to develop a ‘theory of change’ for monitoring (for example) that good practice requires (Esteves et al. 2012; Franks and Vanclay 2013). Further, participants (Workshop, D) commented that developing social impact monitoring strategies are challenging for some practitioners, thus their inclusion in Social Impact Management Plans (SIMPs) fall short in attempting to capture and mitigate impacts (Franks and Vanclay 2013).

SIA practitioners (Workshop, D) commented that they themselves are rarely given the opportunity to go back and check or monitor their own strategies, as one participant noted:

You don’t actually have any involvement beyond when the budget runs out and you’ve handed it [the SIA report] in. That’s just a structural thing. It’s very rare, if ever, that you actually know what happens on the project beyond what you’ve done, let alone get to do follow-up work. [SIA Practitioner, D]

Project management

When participants were asked about contextual factors that influenced the assessment and management of social impacts, project management practices were noted as having had a significant impact in their experience. As Mottee et al. (2020a) also identified, overwhelmingly, many participants believed that technical and economic aspects, such as controlling risks regarding time, budget and scope, dominated the focus of planning during project development, particularly as transport projects are led by technical-minded project managers. As one participant (Academic, A) noted, ‘You don’t always have the right people on the team – the project manager needs to have a good eye for considering social issues.’ Consequently, this prioritises methods such as CBA that require impacts and risks to be monetised as a key decision-making and assessment tool. One participant explained the problem with this as follows:

I have more problems with the Cost Benefit Analysis because in a way in the end they [economists] implicitly claim they have taken account of everything … in a way they cannot accept that there are other ways of looking at the world that might lead to different conclusions. … and so it [decision-making] should be also about the dollars, but not only about that. [Academic, B]

This shifts the focus of management away from more effective tools to assess and manage social issues like SIA (Vanclay 2017), as one participant noted reflecting on the Norwegian urban context:

What is required early on in this [transport planning] process, for any new projects that come up, is a study of the possible concepts. And in this report about these possible concepts, it is also required that there is a Cost Benefit Analysis.

I would say that this is a core part in the study. But you should also look at other things that you cannot put a price on or cost, but they don’t go very far in the direction of a social impact analysis. [Academic, A]

Reputation risk, time pressures, political structures and power dynamics were also major considerations in project management practice that participants noted influenced whether social issues were adequately considered. Participants (Focus Groups, B, C, Workshop, D) thought that government-led projects were focused on minimising political reputation risk and were steered by political forces, tight timeframes and budgets, rather than proactively identifying potential social benefits and addressing social impacts. Participants believed that project managers also had a narrow focus on key risks such as controlling budget, time and scope and often were not willing to consider social issues as risks. One participant noted that tapping into the concern about project management risks, in their experience seemed to be the most effective way to convince proponents to do SIA:

I want to prove that it’s cost-effective to do this, if I can’t prove that, they will not do it, they will never do it. I focus on two things, that’s the delays, and the other one is the reputation of the client. Those two are affected by these risks. And that is risk management talk, but this they listen to. [Academic, A]

The over-emphasis on budgets is further exacerbated by long planning timeframes of more than 10 years for many megaprojects and poor management of uncertainties. Of course, not all information is available at the beginning of project development, and it is not possible to plan for all unknowns. Project managers easily become focused on reserving budget to adapt and cater for changes as information becomes available, but underestimate budget requirements for managing social issues and risks and stakeholder consultation (see Flyvbjerg 2014). Although it is entirely predictable that something will happen in the realm of social, political and stakeholder risks, the specifics are unknowable in early project stages – which is precisely why good practice SIA is a powerful tool to inform governance, decision making and project planning (Esteves et al. 2012). One participant (Academic, A) explained they felt it was important to understand social impacts and involve the community early, but considered it challenging to address and account for uncertainties in the long planning timeframes for transport.

Urban governance and planning

Regardless of the urban context they were from, or had worked in, participants repeatedly reported significant challenges placed on IA from urban governance, planning and associated processes. Participants (Focus Group, B, Workshop, F) were concerned that projects and plans for urban development are conceived and made in practice silos. That is, transport plans are made by engineers in planning departments separated from urban planners developing metropolitan plans for cities and the social planners considering social infrastructure needs. One practitioner (ESIA Practitioner, B) noted this as problematic because the size of transport infrastructure projects has become so large that they cost a significant amount of budget, stretching the capacity of municipal resources, and subsequently fail to consider the integrated social services required to support a new development.

Urban governance also constrains the implementation of good practice when political priorities have the greater influence in decision-making – often evolving the public understanding of emerging social outcomes arising from an infrastructure project (Mottee and Howitt 2018). Reflecting on the time and cost for transport project delivery, one Australian participant noted the relationship between political priorities and planning:

The time is there, and the money can be made available. But it [planning projects] comes back to the political component. The time is limited by the political cycle, the election cycle. You see it at the local government, at the state government, at the commonwealth level. So, it’s all about that election period, what can we get up, what can we make media news today. [Planning Officer, E]

Many participants agreed that the political motivation of decision-makers – including not only the decision-making of elected politicians, but also the management of political risk by public officials – was an overriding factor in how transport infrastructure projects were identified and prioritised in plans, and in determining whether social issues (such as well-being, health, mobility, justice, accessibility) and public need were considered at all. Participants (Workshops, D, F) had observed a mismatch in the management of impacts at governance scales (as identified by Veeneman and Mulley 2018), whereby the local council tends to focus on social issues and the state is only focused on rather narrowly-defined costs and state benefit.

In all workshops, focus groups and in several expert interviews, participants discussed key decisions about which projects should be included during the development of strategic urban plans, and the widespread reliance on CBA to determine which projects should be prioritised. Furthermore, participants of the IAIA focus group (Workshop, B) noted that strategic urban plans lack detail and over-simplify or overstate the complexities influencing social environments over the time scales of both individual projects and major urban scale transport plans. There was also a general concern that urban planning is not keeping up with population growth in cities and uninformed pressure and urgency for planning new infrastructure.

At the Australian-based workshops (Workshops, D, E) participants highlighted a lack of governance oversight of planning processes at the urban scale was seen as making it hard to ensure monitoring about management strategies documented in IAs. Participants felt that when governments left companies to self-regulate, it did not occur, and that there was no accountability assigned by regulators to do follow up. One Australian practitioner noted in their experience, follow-up is dependent on the proponent’s willingness to undertake it:

My experience is that follow-up is purely up to the goodwill of the proponent and if they are a good proponent, they will take on board what you would have found and implement it … But I think it’s even worse with government. There’s actually no provision for follow-up of what was promised in a Management Plan. [SIA Practitioner, D]

Reflecting on their experience the same participant noted a lack of motivation for SIA, and subsequently follow-up, was directly related to an absence of regulation.

A failure of ‘bottom-up’ planning and engagement processes was noted by one participant (Academic, A) discussing the Dutch planning situation. All levels of government are still overly concerned about social risks and how the public may prevent projects proceeding if they are engaged to participate in the decision-making process. One participant (Workshop, D) suggested that strategic decisions were made behind closed doors and only presented to the public during the IA process for discussion after the decision had already been made (see also Sturup 2016; Legacy 2018). This shifts the role of IA from a decision-making tool where the public has the right to shape the process, to a ‘tick-box exercise’ (Aucamp and Woodborne 2020). Others (Workshop, D) noted that public participation and engagement methods were not consistently applied for all projects they participated in and, once a project moves into monitoring and management phases, collaboration with those affected diminished. Adding to this, participants (Workshop, D) suggested that assessments are mobilised to support political approval of often inadequately prepared business cases and this results in distributional justice concerns being left unconsidered in these early stages of planning.

Professional perspectives II: overcoming constraints

Improving SIA practice

Participants were asked to consider what improvements could be implemented to overcome constraints on good SIA practice. The importance of mandatory SIA guidelines was acknowledged. While international guidelines exist (Vanclay et al. 2015), local guidelines tailored to the planning process of the relevant urban geographical context and mandated for transparent implementation are more likely to address project-related social impacts (see also Parsons et al. 2019; Gulakov et al. 2020). Participants (Focus Group, B, Workshops, D, E) suggested such guidelines are necessary to ensure applications of appropriate methodologies and accountability for good practices, so that practitioners, authorities and proponents agree on the research and reporting required. Participants (Workshop, C) noted that in The Netherlands the development of guidelines is needed to establish a clear understanding as to the definition of a ‘social impact’, how to identify them, and undertake assessments using social science methodologies. Guidelines should establish the understanding that a social impact will affect vulnerable people differently and recognise this as central to identifying and assessing the social impacts of public transport (Vanclay 2003). Many participants thought this was particularly important to distinguish social from traditional ‘technical’ impacts of transport planning and EIA methods used to assess those impacts.

In addition to establishing good practice guidance, accountability for following mandated guidelines, for example, by embedding SIA in legislation, was seen as crucial in delivering SIA to good practice standards (Workshop, D). One participant (SIA Practitioner, D) suggested mandating SIA, especially in government projects, was the best opportunity to generate accountability for a project. Another suggested that government regulators also need to be resourced to conduct regulation to ensure accountability for the contents of guidelines is maintained:

I think that it’s critical to mandate it. … But another thing is that we need to have a greater capacity to do this at a government level to make sure not only that we’re mandating it and enforcing it, but actually supporting consultants and applicants to do this. I don’t see it as a big hand of the government forcing reluctant proponents to do that or why that sometimes that might be required. But we need to take a collaborative approach to this. [Planning Officer, D]

Some participants suggested that greater regulation by several parties is essential to ensuring that follow-up and monitoring of social impacts by practitioners during assessments will occur (see also Pinto et al. 2019), for example, as a Dutch participant argued:

We have to be very smart with that, we have to be designing contracts and regulation in a way where there is co-sharing responsibility, where the responsibility is not only on the burden of the shoulders of the private sector, but also the government and the community has to do something. But when one of those three parties is not delivering, the others can come and complain. So, it’s also a way of designing smart regulations to prevent court cases. [Academic, A]

Another participant noted that in the Dutch EIA context follow-up does not occur due to a lack of repercussions as well as interest, and that monitoring plans should be implemented during planning, either through IA or spatial plans:

We never do the evaluation and if we do it, there are no consequences. Maybe there are some consequences because I heard people go to court. But I think this is a weakness in the process. In the ‘Omgevingswet’ [environmental law] process monitoring should play a bigger role in the process of planning. And if you do, then you should make a monitoring plan … within the environmental assessment or within the plan, and consider it in the decision-making. [Planning Officer, C]

Participants (Focus Group, C) argued that in the absence of regulation by a separate entity, there is no incentive for either public or private sector proponents to undertake monitoring or follow-up (see also Arts 1998). Other researchers have also advocated for regulation as an important part of good practice EIA follow-up that would support improved practices in management and monitoring (e.g. Morrison-Saunders et al. 2007, 2021; Pinto et al. 2019). Mandatory reporting and auditing prescribed by decision-makers in development approval conditions were seen by participants (Workshop, D) as essential to facilitating positive social outcomes from transport projects. Prescribing development approval conditions with reporting and auditing should require proponents to reserve budgets for follow-up and reporting, and to involve SIA practitioners who prepared the SIA report. To overcome the methodological challenges of developing monitoring strategies for follow-up, participants (Workshop, D) also suggested that SIA practitioners should be trained in methods used in other sectors, such as program evaluation and social return on investment, which are frequently used to monitor social impacts and measure the success of international development programs.

One participant (SIA Practitioner, C) added that it was essential to include the community and stakeholder engagement personnel (if applicable) in monitoring and follow-up to assist with assigning accountability for actions and management strategies developed in earlier project stages. It was further suggested that management strategies should be designed to be flexible and adaptable to changes in the social context. This is particularly important, as one practitioner (SIA Practitioner, D) noted, ‘the community expects to be heard and they understand what social impact assessment is’ and they demand follow-up be undertaken.

Improving knowledge transfer between academia, practitioners and government to share good practice and research into social impacts were mentioned as a solution to overcome misunderstandings about how to apply SIA. Several participants discussed that the government and proponents needed to be better informed so that involving the community to understand and manage social risks is viewed positively, and that this involvement does not give the community veto rights nor would imply in a project being halted if done properly and early on in the planning process. As one participant mentioned, there is a fear among authorities about involving the community, and this is a reason they do not undertake SIA, nor follow-up:

Because authorities may think that this is giving a veto to the people. This is what they fear. Because you have to understand why they don’t consult the affected communities and that’s because they think the community will say no and then they can’t do anything anymore … consulting is not the same as giving veto rights to the communities. We should also, not only educate the people, the affected communities, but also we need to educate the authorities, the decision-makers, the permitting authorities. [Academic, A]

One participant also stressed that it was a responsibility of the practitioner to educate clients and project managers on the relevance of social issues and high social risks to their project:

In the really upfront stages of SIA, just kind of reframing the conversation with our clients and the project managers. Right up front, asking them what is the social outcomes of your project? What are the social opportunities here? And get them to articulate that. People aren’t always good at doing that, and they might not have even thought about it really. [SIA Practitioner, D]

Another participant (Focus Group, B) described this responsibility as practitioners helping governments to use SIA as an opportunity to ‘think before acting’ so as to take the time to better inform decision-making in the early stages of planning. Participants (Workshops, D, E) reflected that a re-focus on social issues in early stages of strategic planning (not just project planning) would also help achieve better outcomes. As one practitioner noted:

Governments should get to know who the ‘public’ are before they start. Asking the question, “Well, who are we going to impact?” to make a conscious choice about who is going to be impacted. [SIA Practitioner, D]

Participants (Workshop, D) emphasised that it was the role of the SIA practitioner to educate decision-makers and project managers about what the implications are if the facts are ignored. One participant (Focus Group, B) noted that there is ‘normative or moral argument, which is that it’s the right thing to do for society.’ Similarly, Vanclay (2020) suggested practitioners should advocate for the value of SIA and ensure the projects on which they work are committed to addressing social issues. Practitioners advocating for SIA would also help to elevate SIA’s role as offering more than stakeholder and community engagement as the solution to managing social impacts. Participants (Workshop, D) additionally stressed that it was important that project managers and proponents did not feel burdened by SIA, either through having to increase cost or extend timeframes. It was suggested that an ideal situation is where the proponent views it a benefit in doing SIA and follow-up and as such will be willing to pay for it.

Contextual factors

Although the practitioner has some role to play in overcoming the constraints on the assessment and management of social impacts (see also Vanclay 2020), all participants in this research suggested contextual factors (project management, urban governance and planning) influence the social outcomes of projects. The suggestions for practice to overcome the constraints discussed above would require supportive changes as part of the project management lifecycle and the wider urban planning process. For example, to facilitate improvements in stakeholder engagement and public participation, sufficient budget must be allocated in project budgets in the business case development stage for later stages of the project.

A solution suggested by one participant to help manage this is for project managers to recruit those involved in the EIA process into the construction stage and beyond, so the community not only has a consistent ‘face’ of the project to build rapport and facilitate accountability, but also so that the knowledge obtained is not lost between project stages:

… if we can try and take the same [community engagement] people through from that pre-approval engagement through to that Construction Liaison Committee. They’ve had oversight of the whole process and they do keep the developer and the consultants accountable because they know what was in those reports and they’ll happily print one out and bring it along to the meeting. [SIA Practitioner, D]

While this practitioner encourages these improvements, such solutions also require project managers to take the initiative for this constraint to be overcome.

Prioritising social risks as co-equal with environmental, economic and various other technical risks early in project planning is another example where IA practitioners can encourage a more equitable balance; this has limited influence to overcome constraints (Mottee et al. 2020a). Participants noted that issues related to social risks will result in equivalent time delays and cost over-runs as other key project risks if left unmitigated (see also Esteves et al. 2012). Thus, when prioritising risks for costing purposes, many participants emphasised that it was important that equivalent project budget is allocated for managing social risks during the project lifecycle and beyond, as for the other key project risks. Adequate contingencies are also important to address uncertainties across the long planning timeframes for infrastructure. It was further discussed that responsibility for public infrastructure projects budgets post-construction may lie within the operational budgets of city-scale authorities, rather than being addressed at the scale of individual projects.

However, as Fensham (2015) also suggested, this budget may require reallocation of funds from the state to the local (urban) government. As one participant suggested, local government should be included in the development of management strategies for state projects and assign budgets at the local scale, as they have a closer connection to the needs of the local population:

So I think that also these things should be made more at the local level, like if you build a road it will have effects locally … and it is up to municipality to see what should be the best measures in such an area. But then you should also give responsibility to these groups that work in a local area. You should give them budgets, and support by the municipality to take measures later [in response to monitoring and follow-up once a road is built] to see what measures are best. [Policy Officer, C]

A participant (Focus Group, B) commented that the shift towards planning transport infrastructure projects at more local scales (the urban neighbourhood, local electoral districts, the scales of urban governance) and away from central government and centralised planning systems, would create opportunities for better consideration of social issues. Decentralised planning, however, may also create challenges for planning transport infrastructure as part of a wider transport network and in integrated spatial planning due to the multi-level governance context (Fensham 2015; Veeneman and Mulley 2018). Another participant (Academic, A) noted, that in Norway, consultation and sign-off with the local governments and populations is mandatory; however, they cautioned that it can easily become an under-resourced administrative burden. It may result in shifting accountability in politically expedient ways that respond better to immediate political and commercial interests than longer-term and contested public interests.

Several participants (Academic, A, Workshops, E, F) recognised that while project managers need to be flexible in planning and in developing budgets to include contingencies to address uncertainties and adapt to change, this needs to be reflected in urban planning processes for it to be most effective. That is, when creating strategic plans that ultimately include long planning timeframes, adaptivity of those plans to changes in the social environment must be considered so that plans remain relevant over time, as one participant reflected:

… if there’s no structure in the adaptive management program, (whatever that looks like) the decisions that have been made based on the existing studies are 20 years old. [Planning Officer, E]

The inadequacy of plans to adapt to change, inhibits the application of good practice during project-scale assessments in the planning approval. Implementing an adaptive management program or Social Management System (SMS) or an integrated Social and Environmental Management System (SEMS), as Vanclay et al. (2015) suggested, would also facilitate overcoming methodological constraints that practitioners face with assessing impacts and identifying benefits, and at different spatial and temporal scales (Mottee et al. 2020c).

Participants (Focus Group, B, Workshop, F) mentioned that ESIA often facilitates the consideration of social issues during infrastructure planning, by providing an opportunity to connect knowledge across the different sectors (such as transport planning and urban planning) that have become siloed in practice:

… it’s [IA] about connecting different sectors and different silos, hopefully diluting the silos. A way of looking not into development objectives only per se, which is what urban planning does, but looking into other dimensions and values, objectives as well. [ESIA Practitioner, B]

Participants suggested taking an integrated approach to urban and transport planning would help to dilute these silos by connecting different sectors so that they can consider other strategic values and objectives together. However, where this does not occur, one participant (Focus Group, B) noted that it was the role of ESIA to integrate this type of thinking for urban planning. Applying ESIA in this way would then allow decision-makers to better consider strategic social need, benefits and other synergistic opportunities, rather than solving a single urban transport or planning problem. Another participant (Planning Officer, E) noted that in their local context (Sydney) a complete structural reform is required that places more emphasis on strategic planning as leading public infrastructure planning and addressing social need, in advance of project-scale ESIA, ‘then the work of the planning system and the work of the impact assessment is less, because you’ve set the strategic framework’. More emphasis on assessments during the strategic planning, would also require more reliance on the application of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and the benefits it can bring into the project-ESIA through tiering if mandated – that is, systematic integration with project decisions (see also Fischer 2005).

Combined with this, participants (Workshop, E) considered a change from the way strategic plans and their associated projects are approved by politicians was also needed. Participants noted that the present governance structure in Australia and The Netherlands, in particular, leads to the politicisation of expenditure on much needed public infrastructure that disregards social need and prioritises financial gain. Even strategic plans created in collaboration with the public can fail when they move into project approvals and construction stages if politics are not in their favour (Mottee and Howitt 2018). These suggestions require fundamental systemic adjustments in how urban planning processes evaluate, assess and manage social issues that extend well beyond the influence of the SIA practitioner.

Participants in all the focus groups, workshops and expert interviews stressed that mandating SIA as a formal part of urban planning, so that regulation could be enforced, was an optimal solution to overcoming constraints. However, while mandating SIA and its good practice through guidelines and regulation was one of the more supported solutions to overcoming constraints, it must be noted that practitioners have little to no influence on this. Furthermore, they have no control as to whether the SIA process begins earlier during strategic planning as proposed in good practice. Practitioners may advocate for these changes, however, the responsibility lies with those accountable for urban governance processes to make these adjustments. Others, such as Morrison-Saunders and Arts (2004), also caution that regulation alone is insufficient to ensure that follow-up will occur. Other structural changes such as capacity building, assigning more resources and responsibility at the local level and greater collaboration across governments, particularly in multi-level governance contexts, are needed as part of a complete package to support improvements. However, further case study research focused on the structural changes and contextual constraints influencing social outcomes of projects in the urban environment, is required to better understand the potential contributions of such initiatives and how they may support improved SIA practices.

Conclusions

The constraints and limitations on good practice SIA presented by participants in the focus groups and in expert interviews are consistent with recent research findings (Mottee and Howitt 2018; Mottee et al. 2020a, 2020b, 2020c). Current SIA practice in many jurisdictions falls short of the good practice methodologies and theory as proposed in the academic and professional literature. Improving practice will be difficult to achieve when good practice approaches are not consistently followed and the necessary supportive frameworks in project management, and urban governance and planning are lacking. The approaches derived from the expert opinions in this research are centred around generating more emphasis on social impacts during strategic integrated urban and transport planning, and through the project lifecycle and beyond. Placing more emphasis on the assessment of social impacts at strategic stages (such as could be achieved using SEA) also has the potential to achieve more sustainable and equitable outcomes from urban planning processes. Participants emphasised the value of SIA guidelines but concluded that SIA must be embedded in urban planning regulation for its implementation throughout the project lifecycle to be most effective. Furthermore, this is essential to hold political, bureaucratic and commercial processes accountable for social outcomes.

For SIA to be applied as good practice guidelines anticipate, practitioners in these systems will not only need to secure professional excellence in practitioner groups, but also adjustments in contextual factors at the scale of both the management of individual projects and the scales of urban governance and planning. There needs to be less ‘project-focus’ in urban transport planning, and more management-impact focus that facilitates collaboration across governance scales. There is real tension between multi-level governance and urban planning around transport issues, and managing the local city impacts experienced at the project-scale. Evolving governance approaches which can target the appropriate scale will be crucial in securing urban governance and transport infrastructure project management that better recognises and responds to social as well as economic, environmental and technical issues. Further research and case studies in practice are needed to demonstrate how different urban governance approaches can be applied to address and adapt to complex social changes in the urban environment, while effectively supporting the delivery of plans and projects.

Understanding how urban context is influenced by vested interests, political forces and systemic fragmentation in multi-level governance systems in major cities in mature democracies is essential in building systemic and sustained recognition of the value of SIA in pursuing societal objectives to deliver sustainable and equitable transport solutions. Addressing the constraints on good practice SIA at the scale of individual projects cannot be the sole responsibility of SIA practitioners. Rather, this requires an integrated approach across multi-level governance scales throughout the life cycle of transport infrastructure projects. While good practice guidance may exist internationally, even mandating such guidelines is insufficient. A shift is still required in the way urban transport infrastructure is planned at the scale of the contemporary city. Social impacts must be considered early in strategic stages and prioritised appropriately against other transport-, project- and urban- planning issues.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the participants for their time, and the International Association of Impact Assessment, Environmental Institute of Australia and New Zealand, Municipality of Amsterdam, Netherlands Commission for Environmental Assessment and the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment for assistance during the research. I am also grateful to Prof. Richie Howitt and Prof. Jos Arts for their support and guidance in shaping this paper.

This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship administered through Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; and a sandwich PhD scholarship from the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. An earlier version of this paper was included as a chapter in my PhD thesis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).