Session Description
More than fifty years since impact assessment (IA) became institutionalized worldwide, biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution — the Triple Planetary Crisis identified by UNEP — continue to accelerate despite thousands of assessments globally. This session asks whether IA has evolved sufficiently to remain fit for purpose in the Anthropocene, or has mainly managed the impacts of individual projects while leaving the underlying drivers of planetary degradation unaddressed.
Structured around four central questions, the session opens with a keynote tracing fifty years of environmental change alongside the growth of IA practice. Three papers then examine biodiversity loss and cumulative impacts, climate change and adaptive assessment under shifting baselines, and pollution, monitoring, and institutional learning. Discussion addresses whether project-level IA can influence systemic drivers such as land-use change, energy transitions, consumption patterns, and governance failures, and how adaptive, scenario-based, and AI-supported monitoring can help IA keep pace with changing baselines.
A concluding discussion debates whether IA addresses causes or consequences and identifies priorities for the next generation of practice.
The session responds to IAIA27's invitation to look back for the future of impact assessment. It reframes a foundational question — whether IA has focused on project-level compliance at the expense of influencing the planetary-scale drivers it was created to manage — and opens dialogue among researchers, practitioners, regulators, indigenous knowledge holders, and policymakers seeking to reposition IA as a strategic instrument for sustainability.
Session Summary
Fifty years after impact assessment became global, biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution keep worsening. The session asks whether IA has managed project impacts while missing planetary drivers, exploring adaptive assessment, changing baselines, and monitoring innovations to keep IA fit for the Anthropocene.
Proposed By
Explores adaptive IA approaches capable of responding to accelerating environmental change and uncertainty.
Session Chair
Cristian Perez
Ecos-Chile
Chile
Session Co-chair
Gino Araya
Ecos-Chile
Chile