Social impacts are the consequences people experience when a new project brings change.
Social Impact Assessment Guideline
The Social Impact Assessment Guideline helps deliver a clear and consistent approach to assessing the social impacts of State significant projects.
The guideline provides a framework to identify, predict, and evaluate social impacts of major projects and develop appropriate responses. This provides clarity and certainty for both project proponents and the community.
View the Social Impact Assessment Guideline
All State significant projects need to prepare a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) in accordance with the Secretary's Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARs). The guideline is supported by the Technical Supplement that provides a ‘how to’ guide for meeting the requirements of the Social Impact Assessment Guideline. The optional 2025 Scoping Worksheet is a useful tool to assist at the scoping stage.
Social impact considerations for State significant housing projects
To streamline the delivery of major housing developments, the Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARs) for State significant housing projects require a consideration of social impacts within the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Only where the impacts are found to be significant will they require a social impact assessment in accordance with the Social Impact Assessment Guideline.
An illustrative case study shows what this consideration of social impacts might look like as part of the Environmental Impact Statement: Case study - consideration of social impacts for housing projects.
Refined guideline
The Department refined the Social Impact Assessment Guideline in July 2025 to provide clearer messaging and more practical guidance.
The refined guideline aims to support more effective social impact assessments to contribute to better social outcomes for State significant projects.
The supporting Technical Supplement and Scoping Worksheet have also been updated to offer a more proportionate scoping approach and significance evaluation.
Why has the guideline been refined?
Why has the guideline been refined?
The guideline and supporting materials have been operational for over 3 years. During this time, feedback from key stakeholders and practical implementation have highlighted areas that were unclear or not meeting their objectives. The refinements aim to improve clarity, structure, and proportionality without changing the requirements or policy. These updates also align with the recent changes to social impact assessment requirements for State significant housing projects. No new policy has been introduced.
What are the key refinements?
What are the key refinements?
Changes in expectations for State significant housing projects
We have updated the guideline to reflect that all State significant projects must undertake a social impact assessment in accordance with their Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARs). This refinement supports the 2024 changes to State significant housing project Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements that also provide for an alternate approach to social impact assessment.
Post-approval mitigation and impact management
We have refined the purpose of the post-approval stage of social impact assessment to be about the implementation of social impact mitigation and management measures. For that purpose, we have clarified that management of social impacts should be addressed in the social impact assessment.
We have clarified that mitigation measures should be tangible, relevant, deliverable, and enduring. Key social mitigations should be included in the Environmental Impact Statement mitigations table.
We have provided clearer advice for when a Social Impact Management Plan would be required and clarified what would be expected in the social impact assessment that precedes it.
Key terms and concepts
Our refinements emphasise the importance and purpose of using primary data, including relevant engagement, to support well-informed and reliable assessments. They clarify the distinction between the general purpose of engagement for Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and social impact assessment, helping to define the role of each in project development. Messaging around engaging interested and impacted people has also been refined, with a stronger focus on those who are directly impacted.
We have clarified the definition of ‘social locality’ as the area where people experience impacts. We have described the existing social locality examples to provide clearer guidance on how to develop a social locality and consider gradients of social impacts.
Refinements to assessment tools
The Technical Supplement has been updated to improve both proportionality and clarity.
For scoping the level of assessment, the definition of a ‘standard assessment’ has been refined to apply to projects with ‘moderate impacts’ rather than ‘unlikely significance’. We have introduced a new ‘negligible’ rating into the significance matrix for unlikely or minimal impacts, and 2 medium ratings have been downgraded to low significance.
To achieve better proportionality, the Scoping Worksheet has also been updated to:
- consider whether planned environmental management measures would modify social impacts
- limit the highest level of assessment for positive impacts to ‘standard’
- include new inputs, such as identifying who is impacted.
Additionally, layout and functionality improvements have also been made to deliver a more practical tool.
Other supporting resources
Social locality
The Social Impact Assessment Guideline requires a project social locality to be defined. The extent of the social locality should be established on a case-by-case basis and define the areas where people will experience impacts.
The term ‘social locality’ is similar to, but more specific than, the ‘area of social influence’, commonly used in social impact assessment practice.
Identifying the social locality begins with understanding the nature of the project, the characteristics of affected communities, and where positive and negative impacts may be experienced by different people as well as considerations of the different gradients of impacts in a geographical setting.
These animations illustrate some of the considerations on defining a social locality of differing complexities.
Confined social locality (minimal social impacts or benefits)
Diverse social locality (complex social impacts or benefits)
Engaging Aboriginal communities
Culture is one of the categories of social impact in the Social Impact Assessment Guideline. Engaging with Aboriginal communities is a specialised area, which requires a culturally sensitive approach. This Practice Note provides guidance on understanding the value of this engagement and the principles and protocols to consider when planning for and engaging with Aboriginal communities for social impact assessment.
Project refinements
Social impact assessments aim to improve social outcomes from projects. This Project Refinements Practice Note highlights how this should be pursued through early and iterative changes or refinements to projects. It provides examples of how to achieve better social outcomes and showcases how they should be documented in a clear and transparent way.
Social Impact Management Toolbox
The Social Impact Management Toolbox complements the Social Impact Assessment Guideline by providing guidance on managing social impacts and implementing Social Impact Management Plans (SIMPs).
It is designed for proponents and their contractors. It includes a range of approaches you can choose for the adaptive and proactive management of social impacts. These can help you move from managing complaints and issues to engaging positively with affected communities.
Other useful resources
- Undertaking Engagement Guidelines
- Cumulative Impact Assessment Guidelines
- Crime Prevention and the Assessment of Development Applications Guideline
- Voluntary Land Acquisition and Mitigation Policy
- Renewable energy planning framework (including Private Agreement Guideline)
More information
For more information and any queries, email the project team at [email protected]