The Digital Steering Group was Highly Commended within the ‘Consultancy and Collaboration’ category of the 2020 Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment (IEMA) Sustainability Impact Awards.
Launched by IEMA in 2019, the awards showcase the achievements of organisations striving to tackle the global challenges of the climate and environmental emergency, celebrating the people and businesses that are transforming the world to sustainability.
Waterman is part of the IEMA Digital Steering Group and has been working alongside WSP, Mott MacDonald, Arcadis, Atkins, ERM, Arup, AECOM, Royal HaskoningDHV, Quod, Sweco, Jacobs, Capita and Barton Willmore, to explore how digital practices and emerging technologies can be incorporated into the development impact assessment process.
The judges commented that the Group is: “A great collaboration between 14 consultancies to deliver an improvement in best practice and consistency for sector.”
The Digital Steering Group’s first step was to release a Primer in March 2020. The Primer defines what Digital Impact Assessment (Digital IA) is, why it is needed, and outlines how digital tools and technology – such as unmanned aerial vehicles, geographic information systems, mobile mapping, virtual reality and remote sensing – could be utilised to provide data for impact assessments.
This was an important step in setting out the challenges and opportunities associated with Digital IA, informing our industry and generating wider discussion. The Digital Steering Group then went on to prepare the sixth edition of the IEMA Impact Assessment Outlook Journal released in May 2020 which focussed on how Digital IA is implemented in practice.
You can view the full list of winners by clicking here.