I2S research highlights the opportunities for improved social benefit creation and social impact mitigation through very early consideration of community needs and social benefit in infrastructure projects and revising auditing processes to include social considerations. Our work highlights a mismatch between the stated aims of major public infrastructure investment in Australia to deliver social benefit for community and business, and the processes that determine and audit infrastructure delivery. Infrastructure delivery is currently focussed on risk, which investors will always need to consider. At the same time, social risks – which can be precursors of project delay – are either ignored or downplayed due to entrenched evidence privileging.
Based on paper: Avoiding harm or creating benefit? How a risk focus sidelines social considerations in early decisions for Australian infrastructure projects by Ruth O’Connor and the I2S team
By: Ruth O'Connor
Posted on 31 January 2025
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