Countries around the world are prioritising net zero emissions to meet their Paris Agreement goals. The demand for social impact assessment (SIA) is likely to grow as this transition will require investments in decarbonisation projects with speed and at scale. There will be winners and losers of these projects because not everyone benefits the same; and hence, trade-offs are inevitable. SIAs, therefore, should focus on understanding how the risks and benefits will be distributed among and within stakeholders and sectors and enable the identification of trade-offs that are just and fair. In this study, we used a hypothetical case of large-scale hydrogen production in regional Australia and engaged with multi-disciplinary experts to identify justice issues in transitioning to such an industry. Using Rawlsian theory of justice as fairness, we identified several tensions between different groups (national, regional, local, inter and intra-communities) and sectors (environmental and economic) concerning the establishment of a hydrogen industry. These stakeholders and sectors will be disproportionately affected by this establishment. We argue that Rawlsian principles of justice would enable the practice of SIA to identify justice trade-offs. Further, we conceptualise that a systems approach will be critical to facilitate a wider participation, and an agile process for achieving just trade-offs in SIA.
Impact assessment as a discipline continues to evolve and search for ways to address challenges that are wicked, systemic, and unconventional. More guidance however is required on integrating multi-disciplinary and novel approaches without losing the richness of impact assessments. This paper explores integrating the causal network approach, underpinned by a community well-being framework, into environmental and social impact assessments. We do this by using a hypothetical scenario of large-scale green hydrogen industry in Australia and engage an interdisciplinary team of experts representing a broad experience across the social, economic, and environmental sectors, via interviews and a workshop. The result is a complex detailed causal network, depicting both environmental and social risks and opportunities associated with the hydrogen industry. We discuss using simple and complex versions of causal networks as both are needed to when communicatng with all relevant stakeholders. We found that the causal network approach is useful for the initial scoping of potential social and environmental impacts, especially for a multi-disciplinary team. Three areas were identified to further strengthen such an approach to facilitate a fully-fledged impact assessment in a real case. First, causal relationships need to be evaluated to assess the magnitude of the impacts and identify mitigation measures and incentives. Second, stakeholders, including local communities, should be involved throughout the assessment process, beginning from the conceptualisation of such assessments. Third, the causal network approach presented in this paper is likely to benefit from incorporating ecological frameworks (or similar) to expand environmental pathways in the network.
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