Session Description
Impact assessment (IA) has changed substantially over the past four decades, but has it necessarily become better and more effective? Longer reports in multiple volumes, more sophisticated models, expanding safeguard requirements, new digital technologies and the emergence of AI have transformed professional IA practice. At the same time, practitioners continue to confront familiar concerns of the past: assessments undertaken too late to influence decisions, limited or no scoping of key issues, weak consideration of alternatives and cumulative effects, inadequate follow-up and insufficient attention to social issues and participation by affected communities. This interactive session will bring together two experienced and grizzled impact assessment practitioners and two highly motivated early-career professionals who will help represent the generation that will shape IA over the next 40 years. Rather than presenting conventional papers, the participants will engage in a moderated, intergenerational debate structured around a series of provocative questions such as: What aspects of impact assessment practice have genuinely improved? What useful approaches or professional values have been lost? What lessons from earlier practice should emerging professionals retain rather than replace? Following the debate, the audience will be invited to respond and identify priorities for future IA practice. The sessions will conclude by developing a concise intergenerational agenda for IA practice - lessons that should be preserved, practices that should be left behind and capabilities that must be strengthened over the next 40 years.
Session Summary
Impact assessment (IA) has changed substantially over the past four decades, but has it become better and more effective? Join us in a fast-paced debate between intergenerational practitioners answering provocative questions on the past, present and future practice of IA - back to the future and forward to the past.
Proposed By
NA
Session Chair
Miles Scott-Brown
Ciera Group
Canada
Session Co-chair
Juan Quintero
Environmental and Engineering Consultants LLC
United States