Major projects across Australia – from housing developments and transport infrastructure to renewable energy and urban renewal projects – are at risk of being delayed due to a lack of early and meaningful engagement. Australia’s leading community engagement consultancy Capire, an RSK Group company, is urging governments, agencies and policy makers to address the key reason for local mistrust and anger or continue facing an uphill battle with their projects.
The warning comes as governments, developers and organisations face community frustration around planning decisions and large and small projects – from dog parks to housing and transmission lines. It’s not uncommon for high-density housing developments, for instance, to attract objections around overshadowing and the impact on a suburb’s identity. Large masterplanned communities can cause frustration because of the lag in the delivery of roads, transport and services. New warehouses and logistics centres have caused backlash because of an increase in trucks and noise. Data centres have attracted community opposition linked to noise and industrialisation concerns.
Amy Hubbard, Director at Capire, says the organisations behind such developments have little or no social understanding of the community they are impacting. “Too often, developers start informing local communities about a project before taking the time to really understand the people, relationships, histories and local dynamics that will determine how that community will respond. This creates frustration and erodes trust with communities.
“Examples include understanding the history of ‘project promise’ within a community. Some communities have experienced more than a decade of engagement about proposed renewable energy projects yet have not seen a single project proceed. Another example is examining how demographic profiles have changed over time to better understand what makes a community unique. By building this understanding before engagement begins, project teams are better prepared to have conversations from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance.”
Amy says early-stage “social due diligence” is a must. “Developers would never begin a major project without financial, technical, safety or environmental due diligence. But social understanding is often ignored, when it can impact the overall feasibility of a project,” she says.
“Communities can tell very quickly when organisations arrive with a pre-set process but very little understanding of the people and places affected. More and more, we are seeing frustration in impacted suburbs because the people and local area have not been properly understood.”
Amy says the organisations behind the developments should gather demographic and strategic information by analysing ABS Census and planning data, and combine them with local knowledge and histories, lived experience and direct insight from existing consultations, local networks, influential stakeholders and less visible voices.
“Gathering feedback isn’t enough,” Amy says. “Understanding community and how they want to be engaged needs to happen before approval processes start. Organisations need to test assumptions early, understand how communities experience change and what influences trust. When formal engagement begins, that social understanding will influence who in the community gets involved, how they participate, what concerns emerge and whether they feel respected throughout the process.”
This early understanding can also reduce the risk of communities deliberately not engaging out of concern that it will be interpreted as support for a project. Some groups encourage disengagement for this reason and then criticise proponents for failing to consult with them. It can set up engagement into a contest of competing positions rather than a real effort to understand the issues.
Community engagement is becoming more complex as projects grow larger, they come with sophisticated technologies, stakeholder groups become more diverse, and communities become more informed, connected and vocal about how change affects them.
“In this more complex environment, the best outcomes happen when there is real effort to understand the social fabric of a community before conversations even begin,” Amy says.
Capire will discuss this topic in its upcoming webinar, Understanding Community, on 28 May. The webinar will examine how organisations can better understand communities and stakeholders before engagement begins, including approaches to stakeholder mapping, community analysis and engagement design. Registrations: Understanding Community webinar
About Capire
Capire is Australia’s largest specialist community engagement consultancy, helping governments, developers, investors and organisations build trust, manage risk and deliver better social outcomes. Founded in 2007 and certified as a B Corp, Capire is committed to fostering meaningful dialogue between communities, government and industry across the energy, infrastructure, public policy and built and natural environment sectors.
With a team of more than 30 consultants based in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide, Capire delivers engagement strategy and delivery, facilitation, strategic advisory, communications and graphic design, and reporting and analysis. The consultancy has strong experience across renewable energy, including onshore and offshore wind, transmission and grid infrastructure, as well as major infrastructure, planning and policy projects across Australia.
Capire is part of RSK Group, a global group of environmental, engineering and technical services businesses.
About RSK Australia
Established in 2021 as part of the global expansion of RSK Group, RSK Australia provides bespoke solutions to address the needs of clients in a sustainable way. Our vision is to become a leader in the Australian engineering, water, energy, infrastructure and environmental consulting industries, delivering a complete service across the region and enabling opportunity and progress for the people, businesses and communities we work alongside. We see particular growth in the renewables sector and are poised to provide energy transition solutions for wind, solar and new grid transmission development across the region. Our work in Australia is a crucial part of our 2030 Global Growth Strategy, with the country earmarked for significant expansion over the next few years.
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