Author: changethinker

Born and raised in Mumbai, India with an undergrad degree from Oman and a masters degree from the National University of Singapore. I am an Environmental Professional with a passion for Sustainability, Social Innovation and Governance related issues. A Change Agent in the making who believes that small is beautiful and that impact can be achieved -one soul at a time.

ESHIA in Responsible Transition

The impact assessment practitioner has been at the forefront of environmental and social safeguarding while the infrastructural needs for a changing world for a long time. The ESHIA is the foundation of ESG with its strengths in reporting, impact measurement and replicable character and scenario planning with all the technical modeling which TCFD needs is all in the traditional paradigm of impact assessment.

The language of integrated risk is similar as in ESG and ESHIA, both have moving parts as human rights, climate and community are common to both. ESG is an everyday operations matter while ESHIA and EMP and an ESAP are a pre construction and construction phase affair and usually is asset oriented.

The H in the ESHIA is now Human Rights with Health being an embedded element. After all, Environmental and Social Planning is not new with an rich intellectual genealogy since the 1970s.

ESHIA is a key intellectual mechanism for the responsible transition, as stakeholder social licence to operate has been a key part of the process, albeit imperfections being carried into the future.

The French Affair.

The French street violence in the afternoon of a tragic death is a reflection of a post colonial reality which is reflected in its football team to the working classes. Large immigrant populations whether transient or citizens or multigenerational are the shadow of a global grid called empire from Tunis to Hanoi to Dakar to Pondicherry. Taxes are paid, work to operate the system as European white populations get older and the birth rates do not match.

Through the power of Berber Rai Music of Rached Taha and Cheb Mami – the structural alienation of the Maghrebis are felt in the tunes, especially Ya Rayyah and Khalid’s 1996 classic, Oran Marseille, a tune of transnational belonging. The suburbs don’t erupt without a reason, and migration as policy is imperative for many nations. The College De France recently held a conference on migration and the role of migrants in the economy of France either through labour, skill or taxes.

Race, Slavery and Colonialism are entangled and persist in subtler formations in capitalist societies because there is a neat business model. Sometimes the model breaches it’s safety valves. May be take migration research seriously into policy action for once?