Session Description
Social impact assessment and management practitioners face a common challenge: convincing organisations that social issues matter. While environmental risks, engineering constraints, schedules, and financial metrics are frequently embedded within organisational decision-making, social impacts are often viewed as secondary, difficult to quantify, or the responsibility of specialist teams.
Research on the experiences of social performance and human rights practitioners highlights a recurring pattern: professionals are highly motivated by their work, yet frequently experience low role valuation, role conflict, and organisational cultures that fail to recognise the importance of social performance. Success therefore depends not only on technical competence, but also on the ability to build internal influence, foster organisational understanding, and create champions across functions.
This interactive workshop will explore practical approaches for securing organisational buy-in for social impact assessment and management. Contributions are invited from practitioners, researchers, consultants, regulators, and industry representatives who have developed innovative methods to increase awareness, commitment, and accountability for social outcomes within organisations.
Topics may include:
Internal stakeholder mapping and influence strategies
Translating social risks into business language
Training and capacity-building approaches
Empathy mapping and experiential learning techniques
Embedding social considerations in project delivery
Overcoming organisational resistance and competing priorities
Lessons from client, consultancy, government, and contractor perspectives
Session Summary
Social impact practitioners often struggle to gain organisational support for social issues. This interactive workshop explores tools, influence strategies, and engagement approaches that embed social impact into organisational decision-making, build internal champions, and strengthen commitment to meaningful outcomes.
Additional Information
Session Format
3 x 10-minute presentations
30-minute interactive exercise, the audience rotates across 3 sections where different problems and solutions are discussed, based on the presentations
30-minute reporting back and development of practical lessons
- One outcome will be a summary PDF of practical tools for gaining organisational buy-in (shared after the session)
- Room layout: we require a room without tables and with chairs that can be re-arranged
Session Chair
Helen Aadnesgaard
Van Oord
Netherlands
Session Co-chair
Dr Ana Maria Esteves
Community Insights Group
Netherlands