This third session of the online Scotland’s EIA Conference programme turned its attention to the rapid progress being made in the expanded use of digital approaches to improve the effectiveness and outcomes of the EIA process. Scotland’s EIA Conference is a partnership event designed and coordinated between: Fothergill Training & Consulting, the Scottish Government, HES, NatureScot and SEPA with the aim of furthering the enhance of EIA practice across Scotland. The conference freely brings together delegates from across the professional EIA community from councils to consultants, developers to academics, Government and the statutory bodies. This conference session provided the perspective of the UK’s leading IA professional body, a major renewable energy developer and one of the Scottish EIA’s statutory consultees on the increasing development of digital EIA. The session included: - Dr Rufus Howard, IEMA outlining the concept of Digital EIA, key developments in practice since the 2019 conference’s discussion and their thought leadership view on next steps opportunities for Scottish practice. - Louise Davis from SSE Renewables presenting a case study of their current work progressing the application of digital EIA approaches on wind projects to share experience from the application of these new approaches to practice. - Alison Baisden from Historic Environment Scotland’s Planning Consents and Advice service shared the statutory consultee perspective on the opportunities, benefits and potential challenges of digital technology and approaches in EIA practice.
