Social Impact Assessment and Sustainable Project Planning Under Bill C-69
Social impact assessment (SIA) can contribute to the sustainable development of people and communities by aligning mitigation and benefit enhancement measures with the community’s sustainable development goals and objectives. In this way, SIA is essential to understand and support a project’s effect on and contribution to sustainability.
Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is a process of analyzing, managing and monitoring the intended and unintended social, economic, health and well-being consequences, both positive and adverse, of projects. In addition to meeting regulatory requirements and corporate social responsibility policies and procedures, SIAs can support sustainable project development outcomes for people and communities, by aligning mitigation and benefit enhancement measures with a community’s sustainable development goals and objectives. In this way, SIA is integral to understanding and supporting a project’s effect on, and contribution to, sustainability.
The increasing explicit requirement for SIA within environmental assessment legislation illustrates the emerging paradigm shift in environmental assessment methodology globally. Under this model, the requirement to assess social, economic, health and cultural impacts, in addition to environmental impacts, goes beyond mitigation of adverse impacts, to the development of project planning objectives focused on net gains and positive outcomes that contribute to better environmental, social, economic and cultural conditions of local communities and regions within which a project is situated.
A Canadian Example: Bill C-69 and the New Impact Assessment Act
An example of this emerging paradigm towards a more wholistic consideration of project impacts and its contribution to sustainability is Canada’s recently-enacted Bill C-69, which mandates changing the name of the country’s federal review agency from the “Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency” to the “Impact Assessment Agency of Canada” and the name of the legislation from the “Canadian Environmental Assessment Act” to the “Impact Assessment Act (IAA).” These name changes are significant in that they direct the requirement to address the studied impacts — social, economic, cultural and health as well as environmental, and reflect the principle of sustainability.
Bill C-69 also includes a requirement for gender-based analysis, to determine differential social, economic, cultural health and well-being conditions, and differential project impacts, and mitigation and benefit enhancement requirements across vulnerable and marginalized groups. There is also a new mandatory early planning and engagement phase with Indigenous groups, as well as with regional and local government, public and stakeholders, and mandatory consideration and protection of Indigenous Knowledge alongside other sources of evidence in impact assessments. Lastly, there are more formalized processes for Indigenous groups to conduct their own impact assessments within the regulated impact assessment process.
Federal authorities have indicated that the purpose of the IAA includes fostering “sustainability,” whereby the Minister or Governor in Council’s public interest determination pertaining to the project must also consider sustainability as one of the factors to be considered in rendering a final decision on a project. The above changes illustrate that the Canadian federal government is aligning Canada’s impact assessment regulations with well-known international environmental and social standards, including those from financial institutions around the globe.
These changes have positive implications for supporting robust and meaningful SIA processes, social management plan development, and opportunities to enhance a project’s contribution to sustainability However, implementing new SIA requirements under new impact legislation such as Canada’s Bill C-69, can be challenging, requiring new ways of thinking about projects for project proponents. An example of this new approach can be found in our work on the socio-economic impact assessment for the proposed Roberts Bank Terminal 2 Project in Vancouver, Canada.
In our work supporting clients globally, we find the following factors important:
Environmental assessment legislation globally have generally been limited in directing the assessment and management of social, economic and health impacts of projects. Emerging legislation, such as Bill C-69, illustrates how such legislation is changing to advance this understanding and help projects reach their potential as sustainable development opportunities for local communities.