Impact Assessment Specialist

• An environment-related degree and evidence thereof.
• A minimum of 10 years of full-time equivalent experience in environmental practice during the last seventeen years. A minimum of five years must be IA specific. This must be supported by documentary evidence such as current reports or other publications.
• Nomination by three experienced environmental professionals who are willing to act as referees for the candidate.
• Evidence that the candidate is a respected, competent, ethical and active member of the profession in the form of at least two referee statements (with at least one external to the applicant’s current place of employment), a detailed curriculum vitae, reports, publications, citations, conference/seminar presentations, etc.
• Evidence of past commitment to training and professional development completed over the past 2 years.
• Evidence of ongoing commitment to training and professional development (CPD plan for the future to meet the requirements once certified).
• A signed and witnessed statement of claim covering qualifications, experience, ethics, commitment and the accuracy of the materials provided to the Certification Board.

Evidence of your qualifications is required in the form of certified copies (see suggested Authorised Signatories in Australia, and in New Zealand). These must be uploaded and submitted together with the online application. Alternatively, direct access via My eQuals is also accepted.

In exceptional circumstances, appropriate work experience may be submitted in lieu of a suitable tertiary qualification; eligibility of the use of this clause will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the CEnvP Board.

Current CEnvPs applying for Specialist Certification do not need to provide evidence of their educational qualifications.

Evidence of Name Change will be required if your current name differs from the name on the educational qualifications.

The minimum requirement is ten years of full-time equivalent experience in the functional areas of environmental practice gained during the last 17 years. Five years must be recent in the functional areas of IA practice.

The 17-year window should allow part-time workers as well as those returning to the workforce from a long leave period associated with caring, illness or parental leave, to meet the required full-time equivalence work experience.

Full time work is defined as per the Australian Public Service Commission or the New Zealand State Services Commission as Full Time/1.0 (35 hrs/week), 4 days/0.8 (28 hrs/week), 3 days/0.6 (21 hrs/week), 2 days/0.4 (14 hrs/week), 1 day/0.2 (7 hrs/week). No more than 35hrs per week will be recognised (even if working for more than one employer at the time).

Applicant must have at least five years of IA practice in two or more of the following areas:

• scoping, preparation and/or revision of IA documents across a broad range of development types
• developing management, mitigation and monitoring measures and strategies
• undertaking stakeholder engagement on environmental issues
• contributing to IA policy development
• managing statutory IA processes
• teaching and research in IA.

Certification may recognise supervisory, teaching, research, policy, regulation, community conservation work and volunteer work as contributing in part or whole to the 5 years ‘functional experience’, providing the applicant can demonstrate how these have contributed to relevant competence.

Demonstration of work experience and professional proficiencies is shown by work verification signatures for 10 years of professional environmental practice over the past 17 years and a current CV. The experience claimed for the minimum ten years must be fully relevant to management and improvement of the environment and be independently verified by signature (e.g. current or former employer, senior colleague, referee who knew the applicant at that time). These individuals may be contacted during the application process.

The applicant must nominate a maximum of three areas of Environmental Practice. The nominated areas will be discussed during your interview and once certified these nominated areas will be used in online profiles and directories.

NB: An area of environmental practice is a field you are currently or have been working in. It is not recognised as a CEnvP specialisation.

Three experienced environmental professionals are required to act as referees for your application in a professional capacity. Each must have known you in a professional capacity for at least two years in roles such as supervisor, educator, senior peer or client. The applicant should include information on referees’ qualification, employment and relationship to the applicant.

Only the name and contact details of your nominated referees are required for the application. When you have submitted your application, an official CEnvP Referee Report Form will be sent to your nominated referees’ email address by the CEnvP Applications Team. You must make sure the referees are notified beforehand.

A referee must:

• Be a respected environmental professional.
• Be familiar with the applicant’s skills and attributes as they relate to environmental practice, ethics and professional integrity. They will be required to cover these aspects in their referee report.
• At least 1 referee will be an experienced Impact Assessment practitioner who is a CEnvP IA Specialist or would be eligible to apply for CEnvP Specialist themselves.
• At least 1 referee will be an environmental professional external to your current place of employment who is familiar with the applicants work on one or more of the two supporting documents supplied as part of the application.

The Referee Reports must provide sufficient information to demonstrate how the nominees meet the above requirements.

Applicants must be able to demonstrate knowledge and experience across THREE (3) areas of proficiency in both their written application and at interview to achieve Impact Assessment Specialist certification. Applicants must demonstrate they are competent to lead and integrate comprehensive multidisciplinary IA studies by outlining their experience in the three key proficiency areas with an essay style document (400-600+ words).

Answers must be supported by submitting at least four current (methodology/guidelines cited) example reports, with at least one of the four reports being recent (from the past five years) and all reports should be under ten years old.

The essay represents the most informative stage of the application process and is where you should apply the most effort in demonstrating competency. Registrars are looking for both substantive descriptions of experience and the resultant demonstration of applied knowledge that together shows the applicant is a competent practitioner.

1. Methods

Applicants must demonstrate a thorough understanding of IA methods, by describing the following using practical examples:

• the role and limitations of IA in environmental planning and decision making.
• the various stages in the IA process and their purposes.
• the use of strategic and cumulative assessment.
• risk assessment and management principles and application.
• the use of other environmental management tools, such as environmental management systems; environmental auditing and life cycle assessment.
• emerging issues and trends in IA nationally and internationally.

2. Analytical capability

Applicants must demonstrate high level analytical skills that draw on knowledge and experience and can be applied across disciplines by addressing the following:

• describe the IA legislation in the jurisdiction within which they operate.
• demonstrate an understanding of environmental and social issues as well as Indigenous considerations, and their interconnections through rational and objective thinking and the application of commonsense / professional judgment.
• understand the regulatory frameworks, guidelines, methodologies and reporting requirements for specialist inputs to the IA process.
• evaluate the impacts of a project as a whole by interpreting applicable government policy, integrating the findings of detailed technical studies and understanding and considering competing views on the merits of the project.
• effectively apply scoping and prioritizing tools/methods to determine relevant environmental and social issues, relative importance and investigations required to address them.
• identify how baseline information may be gathered and describe the factors that can affect the quality of this information.
• determine the significance of impacts at scales from the strategic, to regional, local and site specific levels.
• identify when to apply adaptive measures such as avoid, mitigate, manage and/or offset.
• review the technical quality of IA documents.
• describe the role and limitations of modelling in IA.
• identify opportunities for environmental enhancements and social benefits.
• look beyond compliance to promote best practice.
• explain the importance of monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management.

3. Interpersonal skills

Applicants must demonstrate robust interpersonal skills across a range of stakeholders by addressing the following:

• demonstrate the communication skills required for effective public engagement, collaboration and consultation.
• clearly express complex concepts and ideas, orally and in writing.
• develop effective working relationships with stakeholders, including proponents, technical specialists, community groups and government regulators.
• understand and address conflicting viewpoints of different stakeholders from their own perspectives.
• exercise perception and judgment in dealing with complex and sensitive issues.
• work collaboratively with technical specialists.
• prepare EISs and other assessment documents that are succinct and easy to understand; technically robust; scientifically factual and capture community views.

At least four current (methodology/guidelines cited) reports must be submitted to demonstrate professional competency, analytical capability and the interpersonal skills required for effective IA processes, which should be referenced in your essay. At least one of the four reports being recent (from the past five years) and all reports should be under ten years old. These should include a detailed account of at least three years of IA specific experience over the past ten years.

Accompanying Statements

For each of the four submitted reports, applicants must provide an accompanying statement answering the following 8 questions:

1. What were the key features and context of the project?
2. What was the nature and extent of your role, and over what time period?
3. What were the main areas of concern or stakeholder conflict (if any) related to the project, and how did you assist in addressing these?
4. What were some of the challenges you had to deal with? Why did you make the decisions you did?
5. What environmental outcome did you achieve? To what extent did your advice influence the outcome?
6. In hindsight, could you have achieved a better outcome?
7. What does your work on this project demonstrate about your expertise in IA?
8. Was the document subject to peer review and what was the outcome?

Web addresses should be provided for documents available on the web.
The reports (4) and accompanying statements (4) should be shared on the application form via a link to any cloud-based storage system (e.g. Dropbox, OneDrive, etc). Any documents subject to confidentiality should be clearly noted.

If you have accrued CPD points in the last 2 years, you will need to submit evidence of this, either in the form of a statement or ideally a CPD log.

You must also provide a detailed statement about your plan on how you will accrue 100 CPD points biennially once certified. This should include the type of activities and the number of hours you are expecting to spend for each of them. Any specific example of upcoming activity, with the name of the organisation is encouraged.

CPD activities may include:

• formal courses at accredited education or training institutes, which may be directly face-to-face, by distance learning (correspondence), internet course, or a combination of these where there is a formal assessment at the completion;
• short courses for which there is no actual assessment, but which will result in a Certificate of Attendance (evidence of doing the course)
• participation at technical meetings, seminars and conferences relevant to the environment profession;
• dedicated volunteer assistance with the CEnvP Scheme in roles such as Registrar, Interview Panel Member, SEAC Member, or assisting a similar professional organisation with a strong environmental component in a similar capacity;
• presentations at conferences, seminars and technical meetings;
• publication of technical or research papers in journals;
• part-time or guest lectures in environmental studies at accredited education or training institutes or organisations;
• assistance to junior members of the profession through the mentoring program;
• private study of journals, magazines and reference texts;
• provision of pro bono advice and assistance to community groups, including expert witness duties and expert advice for the Environmental Defenders Office (promotion of the environment profession and principles); and
• industry/professional involvement for academia.

Previously accrued CPD, and CPD plan are assessed as part of the application process. Submitting a CPD log of the past 2 years of activities is strongly recommended to enable the Registrar, Assessment Panel and CEnvP Board to ascertain your understanding of the requirement post certification (there is no number of points requirement). The activity can be completed on the official CEnvP CPD Log, please see CPD guidelines for more information. If you did not accrue points in the past two years, or you are not able to provide a log, you should provide a statement instead, explaining your past activities.

You have the possibility to submit additional supporting documentation, it may include but not necessarily be limited to testamurs, academic records, publications, citations, reports, training records, written statements of service, or information supplied by a witness, associate, or referee.

You are required to sign a statutory declaration that the materials you have provided are accurate and complete in the presence of an appropriately authorised witness authority (e.g., Justice of the Peace or other relevant qualification in the jurisdiction). You must provide the details of the location where the declaration is being made.

The EIANZ Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct is within the online application form. Please ensure you have read, understood, and ticked that you will abide by it before proceeding onto the next section of the form.

Applications can be submitted online anytime during the year and are usually processed within 6 months. Please note, incomplete applications may delay the process for up to 12 months. For more information, please refer to the Application Process.

Please note:
• Once started, your online application for certification is active for 30 days.
• When clicking the ‘Save and Resume Later’ button you will receive a link to your application via email. If you do not enter your email address and send the link, you will have to start the application again. A new link valid for 30 days will be created each time you ‘Save and Resume’.
• If a link has expired, we will not be able to retrieve it, and you will have to start a new application form.
• Incomplete or flawed applications will be delayed until all missing documentation is received. This may delay your application process.

Provided the required supporting material has been submitted, the application is forwarded to the relevant Registrar for a preliminary check to ensure that the application is complete, meets the requirements, and is ready to be forwarded to an Assessment Panel.

Application fees are non-refundable unless it is obvious to the Registrar that you cannot meet the certain criteria. In this case the application will be returned to you together with a portion of the application fee.

Certification renewal fees must be paid annually to maintain CEnvP status. These fees are charged in Australian or New Zealand Dollars depending on the practitioner’s place of residency.
The annual fee for the first financial year is calculated on a pro-rata basis from the month the practitioner was certified.

Recertification is reviewed every two years. At this time, the practitioner will need to provide evidence of 100 CPD points and a statement verifying any changed circumstances including employment and ethical conduct.

Impact Assessment Specialist CPD requirements must be fulfilled through Impact Assessment specific activities, with at least 50% consisting of activities that directly contribute to: improving knowledge in the field, the field’s higher-level processes, and/or policy and strategy.

We recommend certified practitioners to keep their log from our CPD guidelines updated regularly throughout the 2 year-period.

If you are granted certification and once the pro-rata annual fees are paid, you will receive a personalised seal, and a certificate for your CEnvP, and where applicable, Specialist certification. The seal and the certificate will include the period of certification and an individual certification number.

A new seal will be sent each financial year and a new certificate will be sent every two years, upon receipt of yearly renewal fees and satisfactory completion of biennially CPD log and recertification.