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Largely, the practice in Impact Assessment (IA) is driven by project development rationale, even in planning and program making, limiting the capacity of IA to address strategic levels of decision-making within time, space, and contextual governance issues. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) was meant to fill this gap by starting earlier, taking broader, long-term approaches, assessing non-site-specific development intentions, and recognizing the complexity of systems. Sustainability Assessment (SA) was meant to help ensure the intertwined consideration of social, economic, and environmental issues. Practice shows that more holistic and meaningful strategic approaches are needed with an understanding of systems and how they work.
This course will introduce participants to creative ways in performing IA and how to apply strategic thinking in combination with systems thinking to enable transitional processes towards sustainability. It will explore the possible articulation with AI particularly in handling big data, facilitating analysis and assessment and engaging stakeholders.
Expected learning outcomes include in-depth knowledge of the added value of applying strategic thinking and systems thinking in IA, and the differences between a strategic-based approach and an effects-based approach.
Learning techniques include dialogues, sharing of experience, short presentations, case-studies as well as participatory systems modelling.
Level: Advanced
Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of policy-making, planning and some level of experience with Strategic Environmental Assessment, Sustainability Assessment or Environmental Impact Assessment. Previous knowledge of systems thinking and analysis is not required.
Language: English
Duration: 2 days (29-30 April)
Min/Max: 10-35
Price: US $480
Instructors:
Maria R. Partidario, Full Professor, Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST), Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal, and Adjunct Professor University of Aalborg, Denmark (Portugal)
Johanna S. Gordon, Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Natural Science, Design and Sustainable Development, Mid Sweden University, Östersund (Sweden)
Maria R. Partidario
Maria R. Partidario, PhD, full professor at IST (Instituto Superior Técnico), University of Lisbon, Portugal, is a long-standing researcher, author, trainer and consultant on SEA, environment, planning and sustainability; Maria created a strategic thinking approach for sustainability (ST4S), bridging together SEA and SA in a strategic sense, but which principles could apply generally to other forms of Impact Assessment. This ST4S concept has been put into guidance, published in Portuguese, English, Spanish and Japanese. She has trained 1000+ professional participants throughout the world in 1 to 5 days training courses, both in the context of IAIA pre-meeting courses and in national contexts (in Europe, Latin America, Middle East, South East Asia and Africa). Maria is an advisor to various United Nations agencies and to multi-lateral and bi-lateral organizations, having been involved in 80+ strategic environmental assessments in practice, while her experience also includes many other projects in other fields of practice (EIA, sustainable tourism, urban planning, community engagement in sustainability driven projects in fisheries, farming, oceans, spatial planning, etc.). Maria was President of the International Association for Impact Assessment in 1997-98, and awarded the IAIA Individual Award in 2002 and the 2015 Lifetime achievement award for contributions made to the advancement of SEA internationally.
Johanna S. Gordon
After working in the German media industry for many years, Johanna turned to environmental science where she discovered her passion for complex environmental systems and cumulative effects. Her main interest is the identification, analysis and communication of complex interrelationships and cumulative effects in environmental, social, and economic processes for the development of sustainable policies and decisions. During her several years as a consultant for WSP, Stockholm, Sweden, she developed the idea of applying systems thinking and qualitative modelling to complex environmental and social issues in the context of EIA and SEA. After a short stint back in the media world, where she applied systems thinking to the restructuring of a large media company in Leipzig, she took up her current position as a lecturer and researcher in sustainability and systems thinking at Mid Sweden University in Östersund. Since then, Johanna has been involved in several research projects, continuously exploring the application of dynamic systems models in various projects in different areas of planning, e.g., rail and road projects (Effective and Efficient Environmental Assessment in Transport Planning (Verkningsfull och effektiv miljöbedömning i transportplaneringen (VEM)) and wind energy (Ventos Terrae: Recognising conflict potential and resolution efficiency in wind power) as well as the EU project BioValue.