Session Description
Every project in the graveyard had an approved impact assessment. This curated panel audits the world’s stranded resource and infrastructure projects: assets that passed assessment, secured permits, and died through the withdrawal or absence of societal consent. Spektrum’s analysis identifies more than US$370 billion in blocked project value across 50 projects in 28 countries. The session asks what these failures reveal about the limits of conventional assessment and what must change if stranded projects are to be revived by consent, not pressure.
Katherine Teh chairs a panel with Janine Ferretti, former Director-General of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman; Hon Nanaia Mahuta, former Foreign Minister of Aotearoa New Zealand; and Mick Gooda, Gangulu leader and former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. Together they examine the grievance record, the difference between access and control, and the authority of communities whose refusal stranded these assets. Participants are invited to bring their own stranded cases into an open audit, turning hindsight from failed projects into foresight for live assessments.
Session Summary
A panel audit of stranded projects, consent failure, and revival by authority, not pressure, turning the graveyard of failed approvals into foresight for impact assessment.
Additional Information
Speakers are confirmed as Janine Ferretti, Hon Nanaia Mahuta, and Mick Gooda. Standard panel AV is required: lectern, panel seating, and roving microphones for the facilitated audit segment. The organisers welcome guidance from IAIA27 and mana whenua on appropriate opening protocol and acknowledgements.
Session Chair
Katherine Teh
Spektrum Development
Australia
Session Co-chair
Mick Gooda
Spektrum Development
Australia