Informa Connect Australia 'Energy Infrastructure and Community Engagement' session.

Key takeaways from Kirsty’s presentation included:

1. Social licence is a team event: Really want to earn and maintain a social licence for your renewnables projects? Your organisation should have a widely publicised, shared definition of what SLO means to you. Everyone on your project teams, from engagement people to engineers, should understand what SLO means and their role in helping to achieve it.

2. Early best practice engagement is essential. As early as Project Delivery Model selection. As early as possible and to a high standard. Check out the Infrastructure Engagement Excellence Standards for guidance:
https://lnkd.in/gcEnRCWA

3. Resource your engagement appropriately - It will be the best money you spend. Our research shows that, on average in Australia, engagement teams are allocated less than 1% of project budgets. And social risks are not properly costed into contingency budgets (don't worry, we're working on that, too!)

4. Put your social experts in the room: This includes in the earliest conversations. Our research on contract development and management, led by Ruth O'Connor, shows that social practitioners are often absent from the table in very early project design stages, meaning that there's no one in the room to explain or advocate for why social and community considerations should remain a priority and receive proper budget. Social pracitioners need to be in the room where it happens, from the outset.

5. Take an evidence-informed, place-based approach. For years, Crawford School of Public Policy's I2S has built evidence for social practice in major projects. That work now leads us to equally emphasise the importance of place-based approaches. People live in communities, not projects.