Session Description
Social impact assessment (SIA) has played a significant role in shaping contemporary impact assessment practice. Over time, approaches to participation, rights and equity, cumulative effects, monitoring, adaptive management and long-term outcomes have evolved in response to changing societal expectations and project contexts.
This interactive World Café session uses the evolution of SIA as a lens to examine what impact assessment can learn from its past and how it must adapt for the future. For example, have shifts in practice represented genuine change, or have we just changed how we describe what we do? and which lessons from the past are most critical to carry forward into the next generation of impact assessment?
Relevant to practitioners across all impact assessment disciplines, the session will explore the lessons that remain relevant, the innovations that have improved practice, and the persistent challenges that continue to test the profession.
Drawing on experience from diverse sectors and regions, participants will consider whether current approaches are fit for purpose in addressing increasingly complex social, environmental, cultural and governance issues. Through facilitated conversations, they will identify priorities for strengthening participation, equity, learning, accountability and long-term outcomes.
Moving from reflection to action, the session will consider what the impact assessment community should retain, rethink and adopt to meet future challenges. By reflecting on the evolution of SIA, participants will help shape a more responsive, influential and future-focused approach to impact assessment.
Session Summary
Using the evolution of social impact assessment as a lens, this World Café will explore what impact assessment should become. Participants will reflect on what has genuinely changed, what has been forgotten, and what must be done differently to create more credible, inclusive, adaptive and outcomes-focused practice.
Additional Information
Permission to record the session has been provided, however given the interactive format of this session, it may not be suitable for recording.
Session Chair
Hilary Konigkramer
WSP New Zealand Limited
New Zealand
Session Co-chair
Steph Brown
WSP New Zealand Limited
New Zealand