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Social impact assessment is a field of applied social research that is now over 50 years old. With its ongoing evolution in practice and thinking, social impact assessment is a valued part of project development and will continue to be so. Over time, there has been a shift in understanding, from social impact assessment being a regulatory tool to now being the process of managing social issues throughout the life of a project. The range of issues considered has become much wider, now also including human rights. More than a tool or approach, social impact assessment is a discourse, a body of scholars and practitioners, a paradigm, and a philosophy about development and the rights of affected communities. The proper consideration of social impacts is now expected by all project stakeholders and is a requirement of international standards and project financing. There is now recognition of the need for projects to gain and maintain social acceptance, or a social license to operate and grow. Key current issues include: human rights; doing good rather than just doing no harm; benefit-sharing arrangements; Indigenous-led social impact assessment and community-based social impact assessment; and gender, LGBTQI+, two-spirit people, and intersectionality. Social impact assessment is increasingly being used to assist communities in negotiating Impact and Benefit Agreements (or Community Development Agreements).

Keywords

Applied sociology environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA)environmental social and governance issues ESG factors human rights due diligence

Introduction

The field of social impact assessment (SIA) is now over 50 years old. SIA arose alongside environmental impact assessment (EIA), and arguably is an outcome of the US National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 (Burdge and Vanclay, 1996). As the NEPA idea spread around the world, the requirement for SIA became established in various countries from the 1970s on. However, without a persistent and strong regulatory mandate, the practice of SIA has struggled to always have a meaningful role in policy-making and project management. The advance of neoliberalism and pendulum swings in the politics of many countries have resulted in an intermittent and inconsistent application and role for SIA and EIA. Nevertheless, SIA has much to offer, and in the last decade or two, SIA has had an increasingly significant role because of its inclusion (even if implicit) in most international standards and by being a requirement of most project financing institutions (Vanclay and Hanna, 2019).

Over its 50+ years, SIA has changed considerably, starting as a regulatory tool to assist in decision-making about project approvals to now primarily being a project management tool to assist in managing social issues at all stages of a project. Arguably, SIA is many things, which can be combined into one or considered separately, including: (1) the group of scholars and practitioners who are interested in the theory and practice of SIA as well as the social impacts of projects and events; (2) a discourse, that is, the words and language this body of scholars and practitioners use, and the meanings they imply by this usage; (3) a paradigm and philosophy, or way of thinking about development projects and especially the social issues associated with projects and events; (4) an approach, methodology, procedure, or process for managing the social issues at all stages of a project; and (5) a step or task in the environmental licensing and project financing procedures, in which the social issues are considered prior to project approval or financing being awarded.

Where there are regulatory procedures specifying that social issues must be considered, either they require that social issues to be included in the EIA process or that the social issues be considered in a separate stand-alone SIA process. Given that there are various pros and cons for each of these arrangements, which is most effective likely depends more on the level of genuineness in implementation rather than on whether an integrated or separate approach is applied. The term ‘environmental and social impact assessment’ (ESIA) is increasingly being used when environmental and social (E&S) issues are considered together, even where SIA is a separate chapter rather than being fully integrated. In the last decade or so, the critical role of good governance in project management and obligations on companies to avoid corruption and other malpractice has led to E&S being expanded to ‘environmental, social, and governance’ (ESG) issues. With increasing awareness of the significance of ESG factors – including in annual company reporting, corporate rankings, and ethical investment – appropriate mechanisms for assisting in the management of ESG issues and to establish the veracity and probity of claims made about ESG are essential. SIA will thus likely play an increasingly important role into the future. SIA itself will continue to change, at least by fully integrating human rights due diligence assessments and to be more relevant to a growing range of expectations in relation to the accountability of project developments and their consequences for communities and society.

In this short Epilogue to a special issue on SIA, I make a range of observations and reflections about the SIA field of research and practice, how it has changed over its 50 years of existence, current topical issues, and my prognosis for the future of SIA. This article is an invited opinion piece, and is based on my lifetime’s role as a key academic in the SIA field.

Terminological confusions

It is appropriate to immediately confront the various confusions in terminology that exist. The first is that there are now several separate discourses proclaiming to be ‘SIA’. The field addressed in this Epilogue (and the Special Issue in which it is published) relates to the intended and unintended, negative and positive social impacts arising from projects (Vanclay, 2003), and can be regarded as something like the social equivalent of EIA (although SIA is very different from EIA). This form of SIA includes ex ante and ex post procedures for understanding, predicting, and managing the social issues that directly or indirectly arise from projects and events. However, some other discourses are also confusingly called ‘SIA’, including: (1) a process of measuring the value to society from specific philanthropic initiatives; (2) a process to improve the achievement of social outcomes from social work interventions; (3) in the field of program evaluation, a process to determine the extent to which observed intended outcomes can be directly attributed to an intervention rather than to background change or other effects; and (4) the extent to which a specific policy or intervention is likely to contribute to an organization’s social policy goals (e.g. those of the European Union). There is also a form of product SIA that considers the social issues across the lifecycle of products. While these discourses overlap to some extent, there are significant differences in purpose, scope, methodology, and background understandings. It is very important that there be comprehension of the existence of these different discourses. A so-called ‘structured literature review’ mechanically done by researchers with no knowledge of the SIA field and/or no comprehension of the existence of these different discourses would lead to completely meaningless results and would be a pointless exercise.

A second major terminological confusion is that, with the evolution of the SIA field to now be about the management of social issues across the whole of project life, the range of activities under the SIA umbrella has been expanding. Given the growing number of practitioners in the SIA field as well as the many tasks, there is sometimes a need to differentiate between the various tasks, especially to distinguish the original function of SIA (as strictly only the ex ante act of predicting social impacts) from the other tasks in managing the social issues in project development, including community engagement, community relations, developing and implementing community investment programs, negotiating community development agreements, managing project-induced in-migration, and planning for and managing project land acquisition and associated project-induced displacement and resettlement (Vanclay and Esteves, 2023). While I have always advocated that SIA was a discourse, a broad field of research and practice, and primarily about managing the social issues in project development rather than just the act of predicting the potential impacts, this view has not necessarily been accepted by all practitioners, some of whom utilize terms such as ‘social practice’ or ‘social performance’ to describe their work in toto, while reserving ‘SIA’ specifically for the ex ante prediction of the likely social impacts of a proposed planned intervention.

Defining and codifying the field of SIA

All new fields/discourses go through a process of initial development, conceptualization, and, eventually, in the consolidation of a paradigm, which is generally followed by a process of upheaval, reconceptualization, and potentially a paradigm shift (Kuhn, 1962). This happened in SIA, with the initial period happening across the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s (Burdge and Vanclay, 1996; Finsterbusch, 1985; Interorganizational Committee on Guidelines and Principles, 1994; Wolf, 1974, 1982). However, a paradigm shift took place from about 2000 on (Vanclay, 2006), which is reflected in the 2003 International Principles for Social Impact Assessment (Vanclay, 2003). The new paradigm was reconfirmed in the 2015 guidance document of the International Association for Impact Assessment, Social Impact Assessment: Guidance for Assessing and Managing the Social Impacts of Projects (Vanclay et al., 2015).

The original understanding of SIA was that

Social impact assessment can be defined as the process of assessing or estimating, in advance, the social consequences that are likely to follow from specific policy actions or project development, particularly in the context of appropriate national, state, or provincial environmental policy legislation. (Burdge and Vanclay, 1996: 59)

However, with the 2003 International Principles, the understanding changed to:

Social Impact Assessment includes the processes of analysing, monitoring and managing the intended and unintended social consequences, both positive and negative, of planned interventions (policies, programs, plans, projects) and any social change processes invoked by those interventions. Its primary purpose is to bring about a more sustainable and equitable biophysical and human environment. (Vanclay, 2003: 6)

Given that the 2003 definition clearly emphasizes ‘managing’ as well as ‘analyzing’ (or assessing), this definition remains fit for purpose and is still current (Esteves et al., 2012; Vanclay, 2020; Vanclay et al., 2015). Arguably, the fact that ‘managing’ is in the definition of SIA does mean that the other tasks of social practice/social performance are included in SIA as a broad discourse.

Enter the ‘social license to operate’

The original rationale behind ESIA was predicated on the existence of a well-functioning regulatory system and was premised on the notion of rational planning (Kørnøv and Thissen, 2000). The purpose of the ESIA was to inform decision-makers about whether or not to approve the project, and if so with what conditions. The assumption was that there would be a compliance checking process of EIA follow-up, and that a regulator would monitor key indicators and issue penalties if any breach of conditions occurred. However, the reality around the world has been that ESIAs have had little effect on decision-making, conditions have hardly ever been set, and if they were, there was almost no compliance checking or follow-up, partly because regulatory bodies were deprived of resources and had limited capacity (Kahangirwe and Vanclay, 2022). Corruption has also been a significant issue (Williams and Dupuy, 2017). Unfortunately, there is little evidence that the regulatory model has actually led to better management of the social issues in projects.

Nowadays, however, there is increasing recognition that there is a high cost to companies from conflict (Franks et al., 2014), and that, for any site-level project, there is a wide range of stakeholders who function as non-government ‘regulators’ and set ‘standards’ (or at least hold expectations) about project performance and company obligations including: the policies and practices of companies themselves (e.g. corporate headquarters); the standards and guidelines of industry bodies and international organizations (e.g. United Nations bodies); the performance standards and guidance documents of international financial institutions; non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at all levels; community-based organizations; and informal local protest groups. Even disgruntled individuals can exercise significant influence over projects when they mobilize support and take action (Hanna et al., 2016; Vanclay and Hanna, 2019). The implication of this is that projects must observe and respect the requirements and expectations of many stakeholders, not just government regulators. In fact, the reality is that the requirements and expectations in the performance standards of most project financing institutions are more strict than the legal requirements of most countries, and local communities usually expect more than the minimum standards companies tend to apply.

One manifestation of the recognition of the significance of the interests of multiple stakeholders is in the expression, ‘social license to operate’, sometimes stated as ‘social license to operate and grow’ (Jijelava and Vanclay, 2018; Vanclay et al., 2015; Vanclay and Hanna, 2019; Veenker and Vanclay, 2021). Essentially, the metaphor of social license to operate refers to the continuum (from not given to strong support) in social acceptance of a project by local communities. It is an industry expression to emphasize to senior project managers that projects need a social licence to operate just as much as they need the various legal licenses to operate (Dare et al., 2014; Jijelava and Vanclay, 2017; Luke, 2017; Vanclay, 2017a). The intention of the expression is to encourage project managers to reflexively think about what they must do to achieve social approval (Parsons and Luke, 2021). SIA plays a key role in helping project staff to understand, identify, and manage the social issues; reduce any negative social impacts; and enhance the benefits from projects for local communities, and thus to get a social license to operate and grow. Just to be clear, doing an SIA does not, in itself, mean that the project will receive a social license; rather, the SIA must be done properly, the issues identified by the SIA must be fully and appropriately addressed, and the project needs to deliver value to local communities and be perceived by them as being legitimate. Good community engagement is also essential (Vanclay, 2012; Vanclay and Hanna, 2019; Veenker and Vanclay, 2021).

What are social impacts?

The definitive article on conceptualizing social impacts is Vanclay (2002). In that article, the understanding of social impacts was greatly expanded from what had been previously considered in SIA (e.g. Interorganizational Committee on Guidelines and Principles, 1994) to include a much-wider range of impacts (over 80 in total). Also, a fundamental distinction was made between the impacts actually experienced by people and the playing out of social change processes, which may or may not lead to the experience of impacts (depending on mitigation measures, capacity to absorb, resilience, good management, etc.). Conceptually, ‘social impacts’ should be considered as those impacts that are actually experienced by people, at multiple levels (individual, family/household, social group, community/society), and whether they are experienced in corporeal (physical), cognitive (perceptual), and affective (emotional) ways (Slootweg et al., 2001; Vanclay, 2002, 2003). To be able to predict and manage all impacts, in an SIA process it is important to understand and manage the social change processes taking place. It was also argued that ‘all impacts are social impacts’, and that any consequence arising from a project that affects people, directly or indirectly, is a social impact (Slootweg et al., 2001; Vanclay, 2002, 2003, 2012).

Because there are so many possible social impacts, having a framework to assist in thinking about them is highly desirable. Although various frameworks have been suggested (e.g. Carney et al., 1999; Cernea, 1997; Smyth and Vanclay, 2017), the following framework was advocated in Vanclay (2002: 185–186) to assist in thinking about social impacts and how people’s lives are affected by projects. Essentially, the analysis of social impacts should consider:

people’s way of life – that is, how they live, work, play, and interact with one another on a day-to-day basis;

their culture – that is, their shared beliefs, customs, values, and language or dialect;

their community – its cohesion, stability, character, services, and facilities;

their political systems – the extent to which people are able to participate in decisions that affect their lives, the level of democratization that is taking place, and the resources provided for this purpose;

their environment – the quality of the air and water that people use; the availability and quality of the food that they eat; the level of hazard or risk, dust, and noise in which they are exposed to; the adequacy of sanitation, their physical safety, and their access to and control over resources;

their health and well-being – where ‘health’ is understood in a manner similar to the World Health Organization definition: ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’;

their personal and property rights – particularly whether people are economically affected, or experience personal disadvantage, which may include a violation of their civil liberties; and

their fears and aspirations – their perceptions about their safety, their fears about the future of their community, and their aspirations for their future and the future of their children.

It is important to appreciate that psychosocial impacts should also be considered. Psychosocial impacts are the subset of social impacts that specifically relate to the mental health, psychological well-being, and emotions of people (Edelstein and Vanclay, 2023). They range from minor feelings of being annoyed or inconvenienced through to serious debilitating conditions and trauma. When people’s coping resources are already strained by pre-existing conditions or vulnerabilities, the experience of psychosocial impacts may eventually result in physical health issues (e.g. cancer, cardiovascular disease, gastro-intestinal issues, musculoskeletal disorders, respiratory issues, weakened immune system) and/or in clinical psychopathology (e.g. anxiety disorders, depression, self-harming, suicidal ideation) (Edelstein and Vanclay, 2023). Poor community engagement associated with project implementation can lead to a range of emotions, including anger, apathy, despair, despondency, frustration, hopelessness, powerlessness, nostalgic melancholy, and a sense of alienation. People might become so upset or confronted that ‘moral outrage’ or ‘cultural affrontage’ is experienced (Edelstein and Vanclay, 2023).

While social impacts can be directly induced by a project, they are also mediated by the perceived legitimacy of the project. When people consider that a project is in their best interests, they are likely to accept some level of inconvenience and annoyance. However, when the project has no legitimacy, any minor issue can be the source of major frustration and annoyance. Therefore, all projects should go to some length to justify the need for the project, provide some benefits, and ensure that project implementation is effective. Good ongoing community engagement is essential for all projects (Vanclay, 2012).

Another major issue that creates social impacts is related to the misperceptions and fallacies that are held by project staff (Moreira et al., 2022). The attitudes of project staff toward project-affected people influence the behavior of staff, and this affects local people’s perception of the genuineness of project actions. Attention is needed to acknowledge the fallacies and misperceptions, training and capacity building are essential, and community engagement practice needs to be improved.

Given the centrality of people’s homes to their well-being, anything that affects housing is a major issue, and is a human rights issue. Nevertheless, all projects require land, often where people are living. When project land acquisition is not done in a genuine process of ‘willing buyer, willing seller’, this typically leads to the displacement and dispossession of people. Sometimes negotiated resettlement agreements can lead to satisfactory outcomes, but forced land acquisition through expropriation (eminent domain) is likely to cause enormous distress (Cernea, 1997; Vanclay, 2017b). Home is fundamental to people’s well-being and sense of place, and anything that affects the home is likely to have significant social impacts (Smyth and Vanclay, 2017). A key social practice issue for projects therefore is ensuring that land acquisition is done in a fair and appropriate way. Being resettled is usually one of the most significant social impacts a person can experience.

Current topics of interest in managing the social issues of projects

As discussed above, there is a strong growth of interest in the SIA field, with more stakeholders and more issues being confronted. Here, I briefly address some of the current hot topics.

Perhaps the first topic to mention is human rights. With the endorsement by the United Nations of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (United Nations, 2011), all organizations must be mindful of human rights issues throughout their supply chains. This means that ex ante impact assessment must now also consider the potential for human rights harms, and all businesses must regularly conduct human rights due diligence assessments to determine whether there are any human rights issues that need addressing. Since most (if not all) social impacts can be expressed in human rights terms, there is a strong relationship between human rights impact assessment and SIA, and SIA is able to provide valuable input into human rights due diligence assessments (Esteves et al., 2017; Götzmann et al., 2016; Kemp and Vanclay, 2013). This is especially the case now that a ‘clean, healthy, and sustainable environment’ is a human right (United Nations, 2022). Much of the current work of SIA practitioners relates to undertaking periodic human rights due diligence assessments.

Another requirement of the human rights-based approach is that projects (and significant components of them) must have an effective grievance redress mechanism (GRM). Social practitioners within projects need to ensure that GRMs are established, properly resourced, and effectively managed. Each due diligence assessment should consider the adequacy of the GRM, and how the project has responded to any issues raised through the GRM.

A notable shift in the focus of SIA has been from ‘doing no harm’ to ‘doing good’. Historically, the primary focus of SIA was on the negative social impacts. However, there has been a growing awareness that some major negative social impacts can be the failure of projects to deliver on promises made, and that projects often make no attempt to think about providing benefits to local communities or how benefits might be enhanced. From a community perspective, there has also been a change in thinking – companies no longer have an automatic right to conduct their activities, now they can only do business when they conduct themselves fairly and properly, when they provide benefits to local communities, and when the projects are accepted by local communities, that is, have a social license to operate and grow (Veenker and Vanclay, 2021). Part of the current work of SIA practitioners is to assist projects and communities in thinking about and implementing appropriate community investment arrangements, local content, and local procurement.

Another term for doing good is ‘benefit-sharing’. Especially where local people have inalienable territorial rights (such as with First Nations peoples, native title holders, etc.), projects are increasingly expected to do much more than just provide minor benefits, they are now expected to partner with local communities and provide real financial benefits, such as co-ownership arrangements, or at least profit-sharing. Into the future, all projects in all contexts will be expected to substantially contribute to local communities.

In many Indigenous contexts, local communities expect projects to negotiate Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs) with them, and in some countries (e.g. Canada) this is a formal requirement. IBAs are legally enforceable contracts between a project and affected communities in which the likely negative impacts, the plans to manage them, monitoring arrangements, and the benefits that will be provided are specified, as well as any other conditions that might be applied, for example, cultural awareness and gender awareness training. IBAs empower local communities by enabling them to negotiate an agreement and ensure that the terms of the agreement are observed (Gibson and O’Faircheallaigh, 2015).

Gender considerations have always been part of SIA, but this topic has often been inadequately addressed (Hoogeveen et al., 2021). Nowadays, there is increasing recognition that much more than the gender disaggregation of data is needed. Gender awareness (or a gender lens) implies full appreciation of the vast array of genders (including LBGTQI+ and two spirit) as well as of intersectionality.

Another issue to mention is the need for SIA to be conducted in a manner consistent with ethical social research. Informed consent is a fundamental requirement of ethical social research, but there are many more principles and expectations that should be observed by SIA practitioners (Vanclay et al., 2013). Social researchers should not just presume that they can harvest data from people, they need to ask for people’s permission and they need to be respectful and protective of the data. A much greater commitment is needed by social researchers to meet current expectations, especially where it might be thought that they are actually working for the project, rather than for the people. Arguably, SIA practitioners (including in all major consulting firms) should observe the same conventions around ethical social research as academic social scientists (Vanclay et al., 2013).

A final hot topic to mention is the notion of ‘free, prior, and informed consent’ (FPIC). Strictly speaking, FPIC is a mechanism to ensure that Indigenous peoples have equal access to their rights (Vanclay and Hanna, 2019). It arises from appreciation of the fact that Indigenous peoples are strongly connected to their territorial lands, and therefore anything that might affect their land potentially has a much bigger impact on them than it might have on non-Indigenous peoples. FPIC is enshrined in the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (C169) of the International Labour Organization (ILO, 1989), as well as in the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations, 2007). Arguably, FPIC establishes that no project should proceed on Indigenous land without the approval of the Indigenous peoples connected to that land (Hanna and Vanclay, 2013). Although it is somewhat controversial, arguably the principle could be applied to all communities, that no development should occur unless there is broad-based support by local communities.

Some limitations to the practice of SIA

While I am a strong advocate for the potential of SIA to make a real contribution to sustainability and to achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, there are many limitations that hinder the practice of SIA. Perhaps the biggest limitation is that in the standard way SIA is practiced with companies contracting consultants without any review process, there is far too much potential for consultants to be co-opted. This industry orientation of consultants is obvious in the attitude of large consulting firms that they ‘serve the client’, whereas according the values and principles of SIA (Vanclay, 2003), they should be serving project-affected communities.

Another issue is that, far too often, SIA is inadequately done by unqualified people with little experience. This is further compounded by a lack of resourcing and considerable pressure to get the job done in a ridiculously short time frame. The SIA report is typically undervalued and ignored, as is evident by it often being included in the EIA or ESIA as Appendix S, if not Appendix Z. Clearly, the positioning of the SIA report must change from being just an appendix to becoming the most important chapter in the EIA/ESIA.

Companies often manipulate the project to avoid the requirement to do an ESIA. They may understate the final size of the project, or they may exclude certain components of it. Even though the international standards generally require that all ‘associated facilities’ (sometimes called additional activities) – that is those other subprojects that are essential for the successful operation of the main project – also be considered, too often these are left out. Naïve practitioners may fail to realize that these will also be part of the project and therefore need to be scoped into the project definition. Typical associated facilities and additional activities include construction of access roads, quarries, transmission lines, worker accommodation complexes and recreational facilities, and so on.

To enhance the credibility and integrity of the process, the profession needs to consider how to address quality issues much more. While the consulting firm implementing an informal peer review process is a valuable step, having a formal review process, perhaps by some form of scientific panel, could add value and confidence. Also important is giving a greater voice to affected people themselves. A rallying cry in many topic areas is ‘Nothing about us without us’. This means that affected people must have a direct say about the things that affect them, and therefore consultants cannot speak on behalf of communities. In fact, where SIA consultants are strong champions of communities, there is a risk of a ‘white saviourism’ complex, and potentially for a form of neocolonialism, even if with good intent.

Too often, community engagement processes done in SIA contexts are only instrumental exchanges rather than being genuine and meaningful engagement. This is all too evident in Indigenous contexts where ‘FPIC is not FPIC’: very rarely is it free of some pressure, sufficiently prior to allow adequate consent, fully informed, or actually provides a real opportunity for local people to give or withhold consent (Hanna and Vanclay, 2013). Clearly there is a great gulf between the noble ideals of SIA and how it is typically practiced. Collectively, the governance arrangements surrounding SIA need to be enhanced so that better outcomes can be achieved for communities as well as for companies.

Thinking about the future: is SIA still fit for purpose?

It is clear from the discussion above that SIA is currently playing an increasingly important role in the management of projects, especially because the expectation that SIA should be done has become embedded in international standards, in how many companies conduct projects, and in what local communities and NGOs expect of projects. As long as SIA practice continues to meet expectations, it will have a long future. However, it is also clear that there are many shortfalls in practice. To effectively meet the expectations of all stakeholders, improved training, greater professionalization, and enhanced governance arrangements are needed. A process of developing accreditation for SIA practitioners is already underway in some countries and, over time, this is likely to spread across the world. Unfortunately, a major barrier to better SIA practice is the limited academic interest in the topic, and the lack of university-level training on SIA. The applied and interdisciplinary nature of SIA also means that most social science disciplines do not see it as a key issue, and therefore SIA lacks an academic home. To ensure greater attention to social issues in future spatial planning and development, more university programs that teach SIA must be established. In my opinion, SIA is fit for purpose, but much more should be done to ensure its increasing contribution to social sustainability.

The current green energy transition (to renewable energy sources) will have huge E&S impacts. Being green in an environmental or climate change sense is not good enough, the green transition must also be a socially just transition. This will require much more attention by green energy projects to respecting human rights issues, preventing negative social impacts, enhancing benefits from projects, and improving community engagement.

Some primary criticisms by industry about SIA (and ESIA) are that it takes too long (and causes delays) and is too expensive. These arguments are false. If there are delays, it is only because the project did not build the requirement to undertake the ESIA into their project planning time frame. The argument that the cost is too high is also ridiculous, because the cost of the ESIA is usually insignificant compared to the other costs in project development. Furthermore, identifying and addressing likely issues early in project development are likely to result in considerable cost savings over time (not to mention the avoidance of irremediable harm). Therefore, the alleged urgency of a project should not be used to ignore or fail to consider what could potentially be serious issues. Undertaking ESIA is a no-regret strategy and is an essential part of good planning and governance. The tendency of government to seek to fast-track development is bad governance and should be stopped.

Footnotes

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Frank Vanclay

Author biography

Frank Vanclay has been a leading scholar in the field of social impact assessment for over 25 years. He is author of several of the key readings in the SIA field, including the 2003 International Principles for Social Impact Assessment and the 2015 International Guidelines. As a transdisciplinary and transcontinental scholar, since 2010 he has been professor of cultural geography at the University of Groningen (Netherlands), but was previously professor of rural sociology at the University of Tasmania (Australia). Much of his work over his lifetime has been on the social impacts of large projects around the globe, including research in Africa, Asia, and South America. He is a Past President of the International Rural Sociology Association, and has held many roles in the International Association for Impact Assessment. His most recent edited book (together with Ana Maria Esteves), Handbook on Social Impact Assessment and Management, is being published by Edward Elgar as an Open Access book in 2023.

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After 50 years of social impact assessment,is it still fit for purpose?

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Terminological confusions

Defining and codifying the field of SIA

Enter the ‘social license to operate’

What are social impacts?

Current topics of interest in managing the social issues of projects

Some limitations to the practice of SIA

Thinking about the future: is SIA still fit for purpose?

Footnotes

Funding

ORCID iD

Author biography

References