Establishing international best practice principles for impact assessment teaching and training

Best Practice Principles for Impact Assessment (IA) Teaching and Training were developed for the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA). Research conducted throughout 2018 and 2019 encompassed seven iterative steps: an initial practitioners workshop; comprehensive review of 40 years of literature on teaching IA; initial survey of teachers and trainers; follow-up interviews; development of draft set of principles; final survey of the importance of the draft principles to university teachers and professional development trainers in IA; and a final workshop at IAIA19. The resulting principles are grouped in relation to content (what is taught), pedagogy (how content is taught) and skills development. From 29 draft principles, those identified as ‘Extremely Important’ or Very Important’ (28 in total) in the final survey were included in the Principles published by IAIA. Differences in relative importance of the principles are apparent between teachers and trainers, reflecting their different teaching contexts and objectives. It is hoped that the principles can contribute to more consistent and more effective IA education, contributing in turn to improved IA practice

Investigating the Effectiveness of Strategic Environmental Assessment in Thailand

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) was introduced in Thailand in 2005, aiming to direct decision making at the strategic level (policy, programme, plan) towards sustainable development (SD). Given reforms to the SEA requirements in 2018, it is timely to evaluate emerging SEA experience in the Thai context to inform future practice. The effectiveness of 14 SEAs was investigated based on a version of a recently published framework which substitutes ‘legitimacy’ for normative effectiveness and pluralism, modified through the addition of disaggregated sub-criteria associated with each dimension of effectiveness (procedural, substantive, transactive and legitimacy), to facilitate a richer understanding of the effectiveness of practice. This more detailed effectiveness framework enabled a comprehensive evaluation of practice, and should be transferable to other contexts. The findings suggest that SEA in Thailand currently partially achieves procedural, substantive, and transactive effectiveness. Achieving some elements of substantive effectiveness where practice is currently weak is considered to be particularly challenging, and also determinative in the achievement of legitimacy. Consequently, the majority of SEAs evaluated in this study failed to achieve legitimacy

Understanding the impact of environmental impact assessment research on policy and practice

There is an enormous and ever-growing body of environmental impact assessment (EIA) research, much of which is grounded in practice or seeks to advance it. In this paper we show how the impact of EIA research on policy and practice might be conceptualised and how to set about evidencing it. A framework is developed through literature review to account for impact in four areas pertaining to instrumental impact, conceptual impact, capacity building and knowledge brokerage and co-production. Methods for implementing the framework include citations within policy documents along with content analysis to determine influence and interviews or surveys with policy makers and practitioners; all subsequently presented as narratives. We provide examples and further discussion of each, drawn from recent analysis of the EIA research of one of the authors. Whilst proving impact of EIA research on policy and practice is challenging, we found the framework to be a useful way for structuring and guiding such an investigation. This approach to understanding the uptake and influence of EIA research on impact assessment practitioners and other stakeholders (i.e., government regulators/policy-makers, consultants, proponents or NGOs) could be applied by many professionals in the field to showcase positive impact on policy and practice locally, nationally and internationally. It may also usefully serve academic EIA researchers applying for new positions or for promotion within universities

Exploring the relationship between context and effectiveness in impact assessment

Impact Assessment (IA) has been adopted worldwide typically to ensure the achievement of its goal(s), which might be one or more of sustainable development, environmental policy integration, and democratic governance. Researchers have developed and applied effectiveness frameworks in order to evaluate whether IA achieves its goal(s). The application of these frameworks often identifies some areas of ineffectiveness, and the frameworks are rarely transferable to other cases either within or across different jurisdictions, which makes national and international comparisons problematic. Context is frequently cited as a reason why ineffectiveness is identified in a case, and yet context is not clearly understood in relation to effectiveness. Our aim in this paper is to unpack the notion of context in order to better understand how IA can achieve its goal(s). Based on literature review and a subsequent conceptualisation of context drawing, for the first time, on Integral Theory, we propose that the notion of context can be understood as a range of mediators, which act either as enablers or barriers to the ability of IA to deliver its goal(s). It is these mediators which lead to very different IA system performance in terms of goals achievement, despite applying similar procedural steps. Our conceptualisation provides a significant contribution as it clarifies the validity of claims about contextual elements in the literature, explains the nature of different elements of context, provides a framework with which they can be meaningfully considered and makes an initial attempt at identifying strategies for ensuring mediators act as enablers rather than barriers. It also potentially serves to help unify literature on the meaning of context for IA effectiveness, effectiveness dimensions, and causation in IA, thus providing clarity over the challenges of goals achievement and the appropriateness of capacity development interventions

Global megatrends and their implications for environmental assessment practice

This paper addresses the future of environmental assessment (EA) practice in light of a rapidly changing world. We apply a literature review-based methodology to firstly identify key global megatrends and then reflect upon the implications for EA practice based on some known challenges. The key megatrends identified are synthesised into six categories: i) demographics, ii) urbanization, iii) technological innovation, iv) power shifts, v) resource scarcity and vi) climate change. We then discuss the implications of these megatrends for EA practice against four known EA challenges namely: dealing with i) complexity and uncertainty, ii) efficiency, iii) significance and iv) communication and participation. Our analysis suggests important implications for EA practice such as: increased difficulties with accuracy of prediction; the need for facilitative adaptation; an increase in the occurrence of unexpected events; higher expectations for procedural efficiency; challenges with information and communication management; dealing with significance judgements; and mitigation amidst resource scarcity and increasing pressures on earth systems. The megatrends underscore the need for continued evolution of EA thinking and practice, especially moving away from seeking a predictable single future or outcome towards the possibility of multiple scenarios with associated adaptability and enhanced system resilience capable of responding to rapid change

Distilling and applying criteria for best practice EIA follow-up

Follow-up is an essential component of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) if the success of EIA in improving the sustainability of a project once implemented is to be determined. This paper aims to establish universally-applicable criteria for EIA follow-up to evaluate project performance once assessed and underway. A suite of 24 criteria is derived from EIA follow-up best practice principles published by the International Association for Impact Assessment. The criteria are categorized according to the five dimensions of EIA follow-up: monitoring, evaluation, management, communication and governance. Posed as questions, the criteria support qualitative assessments of EIA follow-up performance for a project. Through application of the criteria to a case study currently under construction (the Shell Cove Marina project in eastern Australia), we found they provided an effective basis for a document review process delivering a short but informative account of the follow-up performance of the case study. The more robust evaluation of some of the criteria, particularly in the governance category, would require supplementary techniques such as interviews

Conclusion: Reflections on the State of the Art of Sustainability Assessment

In this concluding chapter we offer some of our reflections on the state of the art of sustainability assessment based upon the contributions to this Handbook. We do not claim that this is a definitive summary of global sustainability assessment theory and practice, as this is not possible based solely on the 17 preceding chapters, varied and interesting though they are. The focus of this Handbook is sustainability assessment research, and the chapters reflect both applied research and more conceptual contributions. While many of the chapters have been written by members of the impact assessment community, some come from researchers on the edges of or even outside this community and as such offer some fresh perspectives on the conceptual foundations of sustainability assessment. We hope that this research focus means that this Handbook complements other recent and not so recent books on sustainability assessment that have more practical orientations, particularly: Sustainability Assessment: Criteria and Processes (Gibson et al., 2005); Sustainability Assessment: Pluralism, Practice and Progress (Bond et al., 2013b); and Sustainability Appraisal: A Sourcebook and Reference Guide to International Experience (Dalal-Clayton and Sadler, 2014)