ABSTRACT Good practice social impact assessment (SIA) should lead to improved local community development outcomes. However, the social benefits alleged to flow from projects are often not as evident to affected communities as the project’s adverse impacts. Projects still give inadequate attention to social issues and fail to achieve social development outcomes. Using a prominent gas project in Russia, the Nord Stream 2 project, as an illustrative example, we explore the potential of environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) to enhance the effectiveness of project contributions to local community development. We analyse the main steps of the community development process for the Nord Stream 2 project, and consider how it benefitted from the SIA process. We also reflect on the potential further contribution of SIA to community development. Even though SIA and community development are interrelated, we conclude that SIA, as currently practiced, is constrained in its ability to contribute to community development outcomes. Adjustments to the SIA and corporate social investment frameworks are needed to make them more effective in achieving social development outcomes.

中文翻译：

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修改社会影响评估，以增强公司社会投资战略为当地社区发展做出贡献的有效性

摘要良好实践社会影响评估（SIA）应该可以改善当地社区的发展成果。但是，据称从项目中产生的社会收益对受影响的社区通常不如项目的不利影响那么明显。项目仍未充分重视社会问题，未能取得社会发展成果。以俄罗斯著名的天然气项目Nord Stream 2为例，我们探索了环境和社会影响评估（ESIA）的潜力，以增强项目对当地社区发展的贡献。我们分析了Nord Stream 2项目社区开发过程的主要步骤，并考虑了它如何从SIA过程中受益。我们还思考了SIA对社区发展的潜在进一步贡献。尽管SIA和社区发展是相互关联的，但我们得出的结论是，按照目前的实践，SIA在为社区发展成果做出贡献方面的能力受到限制。需要对新航和企业社会投资框架进行调整，以使其更有效地实现社会发展成果。