Integration and focus from the perspective of social impact assessment: A response to Morrison-Saunders et al.

The paper by Morrison-Saunders et al. [Morrison-Saunders A, Pope J, Gunn J, Bond A, Retief F. 2014. Strengthening impact assessment: a call for integration and focus. Impact Assess Project Appraisal. 32(1):2–8] was interesting reading, but ultimately unconvincing in that it did not adequately prove its point. There were too many assertions. The issues of integration and focus are more complex than they suggest. A more considered analysis would have led to a different
outcome. Coming from a social impact assessment perspective, I consider Morrison-Saunders et al. to be guilty of the same thing they complain about, i.e. silo-based expertise, given their lack of connection to papers and discussions outside of their fields of environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment.