The NSW Social Impact Assessment Guidelines for State significant projects have undergone notable refinements in July 2025, building on the February 2023 version and reinforcing the clarity, rigour, and accountability of social impact practice.
These changes aim to improve accountability, transparency, and ensure that community wellbeing is a measurable and considered outcome of planning decisions.
What’s New in July 2025?
- Enhanced Social Impact Scope & Context: Embeds a clearer framework for identifying social impacts, including access to services—education, recreation, health, safety, housing, and mental wellbeing—consistent across all major projects.
- Strengthened Requirements on Project Refinements: The Project Refinements Practice Note now mandates more proactive design iterations to avoid or reduce impacts through early-stage planning and community-informed refinements (e.g., reducing construction hours, altering layouts). Proponents must transparently document these in their SIAs.
- Improved Engagement & Cultural Inclusion: Early, meaningful engagement—particularly with Aboriginal and CALD communities—is now a requirement, not optional, ensuring lived experiences inform impact identification and mitigation.
- More Rigorous Scoping, Baseline & Risk Methodologies: Refined definitions and expectations for social locality mapping, demographic baseline analysis, and risk threshold justification—drawing from likelihood/magnitude frameworks but demanding deeper community and data grounding.
- Accountability for Social Outcomes: Proponents must now explicitly justify their assumptions, methodologies, engagement decisions, and mitigation strategies. They must also include Social Impact Management Plans (SIMPs) in project approval documents, using the dedicated toolbox resource for guidance.
These updates to the social impact assessment guidelines aim to empower communities, enhance evidence-based planning, and set higher expectations for mitigation and transparency.
Comparison Table: 2023 Guideline vs 2025 Refinements
| Feature | Feb 2023 Guideline | July 2025 Refinements |
| Scope of Impacts | Standard categorisations: way of life, accessibility, community, culture, etc. | Reinforced across all major projects, with broader service access |
| Project Refinements | Encouraged via practice note, but not mandatory | Mandatory early-stage refinements tracked within SIA reports |
| Engagement & Diversity | CASE principles are encouraged in a ‘should’ framework | Required early engagement, especially with cultural groups |
| Scoping & Baseline Analysis | Social locality, baseline, risk thresholds described, flexible implementation | Deeper demographic analysis, justification of thresholds, more prescriptive |
| Mitigation & SIMPs | SIMPs as an optional post approval tools | SIMPs expected; toolbox guidance now integral to SIA management |
| Transparency & Accountability | Largely advisory (“should”) with flexible reporting | Clear expectations for documenting assumptions, methods, and engagement impacts |
Why It Matters
These July 2025 updates elevate the standard and consistency of SIA practice:
- Empowers community-centred decision-making by mandating early, culturally responsive engagement.
- Ensures evidence-based scoping and risk assessment, backed by demographic analysis and justified thresholds.
- Promotes clear project refinement outcomes, documented and linked to stakeholder feedback.
- Encourages a proactive approach to managing impacts using SIMPs and the Social Impact Management Toolbox.
Who’s affected?
Any project with strong community impacts, such as large rezonings, State Significant Developments (SSDs), or developments in growth or sensitive zones, now falls under the scope of the updated criteria.
At Meliora Projects, we’ve started applying the new guidance across our internal processes to ensure upcoming SIA and CASE reports align with the latest best-practice standards. Looking for support in adjusting your next project to meet the new expectations?
