Hilary describes social impact assessment as a tool that can be used to better understand how a project might affect a community.
With infrastructure ultimately existing to serve people, she says most projects have a strong social driver. They can be designed and built in a way that promotes human movement, visibility, and interactions, or, sometimes, have the opposite effect.
“We’ve all seen projects that haven’t been successful. You could think of a fantastic cycle path that no one uses and wonder why. It’s likely because whoever has done that project hasn’t understood the social context in which the project is taking place or thought about the community’s needs.
“Community pressure can be one of the main reasons for delays in infrastructure projects. We find social impact assessments are also a good way of managing social risks so that projects are less likely to be derailed by stakeholder and community issues.”
Hilary is thrilled to be recognised with the New Zealand-first certification, saying it shows how WSP is leading the way with its technical expertise.
“Being the first person certified as a social impact specialist doesn’t mean I’m the only person who can do these assessments. There are great people out there who can. For me, it’s about raising the profile of the field and being an ambassador for the value of social impact studies.”
Hilary says the real value lies in considering social implications at the early stages of a project.
“If you start thinking about the social issues early on, you can look for opportunities to improve the project’s social outcomes, rather than trying to mitigate the social impacts later on.”
She points to examples where social impact assessments coupled with community engagement have made a positive difference, including an Auckland route protection project where recreation and community facilities were not only retained but improved. Elsewhere, a social impact study in the Coromandel identified an opportunity to create local employment, skills development and training to meet a project’s workforce requirements.
People wanting to become a certified social impact assessment specialist need a suitable qualification and 10 years of full-time equivalent experience running social impact assessments. Getting certified by EIANZ is a two-stage process involving an application and interview.
Hilary, who has clocked up over two decades environmental and social impact assessment experience, including 14 years at WSP South Africa, says the reason there are so few certified social impact specialists is because it’s a brand-new category of specialist certification.
“EIANZ is the first institute of its kind in the world to establish an accreditation for social impact. It’ll be great over the next few years to see more people getting certified as specialists – raising awareness of the value this kind of work.”
