Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal

ISSN: 1461-5517 (Print) 1471-5465 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tiap20

Impact Assessment for measurable positive

change

Thomas B. Fischer

To cite this article: Thomas B. Fischer (2018) Impact Assessment for measurable positive change,
Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 36:4, 286-286, DOI: 10.1080/14615517.2018.1482657

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2018.1482657

Published online: 28 Jun 2018.

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IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND PROJECT APPRAISAL
2018, Vol. 36, No. 4, 286
https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2018.1482657
EDITORIAL
Impact Assessment for measurable positive change
Dear readers
This year’s 38th annual International Associatio for
Impact Assessment (IAIA) meeting was held in Durban,
South Africa from 16 to 19 May and was attended by
about 1000 participants, of which 400 were from the
host country. The conference theme was ‘Environmental
Justice in Societies in Transition’. Not unexpectedly,
many presentations revolved around the numerous
economic, societal and environmental challenges
faced by countries in transition in general and South
Africa in particular. Whilst – and interestingly – when
discussing those problems and challenges, an explicit
connection with Impact Assessment (IA) was not always
made, a strong implicit message was that IA instruments
such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA),
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), Social
Impact Assessment (SIA), Sustainability Assessment
(SA), Health Impact Assessment (HIA) and others should
help solving them. For IA researchers in particular, this is
an important reminder that ultimately the success of IA
is measured by its ability to lead to positive, substantive
and measurable change. Unfortunately, however, deal-
ing with IA’s substantive effectiveness is frequently
avoided when researching IA (Fischer and Noble 2015).
Whilst there are undoubtedly good reasons for focusing
on more easy-to-grasp issues such as procedural effec-
tiveness, ultimately, and in particular in the current era
of post-factualism, IA will only be taken seriously as a
decision support instrument if it can prove its contribu-
tion towards meeting environmental, social and other
objectives and change.
Numerous lively discussions were held during the
conference, including on the question as to whether
you have to be well off in order to be green, i.e. envir-
onmentally aware. It is very clear that you don’t and it is
well documented that the less well-off people are
usually more seriously affected by a poor or damaged
environment, as well as by social and economic crises.
© 2018 IAIA
However, and importantly the narratives of the main
actors of current day post-factualism often revolve
around attacks on the ‘urban (and environmentally
and socially aware) elites’ that, it is claimed, are either
unable to understand or simply ignore the problems of
‘normal’ (i.e. less well-off) people. That the sources of
these post-factual claims are usually associated with
those that are – economically – very well off and power-
ful are frequently left unmentioned and associated
motivations are only rarely questioned (Mitropoulos
2016).
This issue of IAPA consists of seven research
articles and one viewpoint letter, covering a diverse
range of topics. These include Environmental
Assessment (EA) mitigation, the European instru-
ment of Territorial Impact Assessment, urban sus-
tainability indicators, Project Appraisal, Social
Impact Assessment, IA of buildings, multi-project
EIA and the potential impact of Brexit on EA in
the UK. Authors represent institutions in Denmark,
Greece, China, the UK and Brazil.
Hope you enjoy reading!
References
Fischer TB, Noble B. 2015. Impact assessment research –
achievements, gaps and future directions. J Environ
Assess Policy Manag. 17(1):1501001,12.
Mitropoulos A 2016. ‘Post-factual’ readings of neoliberalism,
before and after Trump, society and space. http://socie
tyandspace.org/2016/12/05/post-factual-readings-of-neo
liberalism-before-and-after-trump/
Thomas B. Fischer
Environmental Assessment and Management
Research Centre, School of Environmental
Sciences, University of Liverpool
fischer@liverpool.ac.uk http://orcid.org/
0000-0003-1436-1221