The following is a summary of the Acorn International’s experience in leading Environmental and Social Impact Assessment worldwide:

Specific Experience in Environmental and Socioeconomic Impact Assessment:
Acorn and its principal have led and performed over 50 environmental and socioeconomic impact assessments worldwide.  This experience includes performing EIA/SIA for various development programs, as well as developing guidelines and conducting training sessions in this area.  Recently, Acorn and its partner in Colombia completed an EIA for an oil and gas exploration program bordering a marine protected area offshore Colombia.

Acorn was recently one of few firms selected to provide facilitators for ESHIA Facilitation and Risk Management processes by a major oil company.  Three of Acorn’s staff are trained to facilitate the company’s ESHIA process for development projects worldwide.  The process involves leading company representatives and external contractors through Screening, Scoping, Environmental Social and Health Impact Assessment, Stakeholder Engagement and Management Plan Development.

Two of Acorn’s staff are trained and qualified to facilitate the Environmental, Social and Health aspects of an Integrated Hazard Identification process on the oil company’s existing and developing projects.  This process involves facilitating discussion of potential environmental, social and health impacts, mitigation measures and recommending additional study at the early stages of project development. 

Acorn’s staff experience includes performing NEPA studies for major US government-sponsored activities throughout the US, developing NEPA guidance documents for USEPA, developing and teaching a World Bank-sponsored EIA/SIA training course for national oil companies, and performing EIA/SIA for oil and gas development programs around the world.  Examples of EIA/SIA performed for oil and gas activities include: 

• Independent review of Social Impact Assessment and Stakeholder Engagement Program, Panama
• Screening and Scoping Activities for Oil and Gas Field Developments, Kazakhstan
• ESHIA training course, Southern Asia
• Facilitation of Integrated Environmental, Health and Social Risk Assessments for an FPSO (USA), a produced gas management program (West Africa), a power plant (Thailand),Oil and Gas Production Facilities (USA), Mineral Mine (USA), and Offshore Gas Facilities (Venezuela and Trinidad)
• LNG plant in Trinidad and Tobago
• Offshore, transnational pipeline in West Africa
• Gas field development and processing facilities in Kazakhstan
• Gas to liquids and natural gas liquids plants in Nigeria
• Refinery in Angola
• Terminals in Argentina
• Drilling and production programs in Bolivia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela
• Seismic and exploration drilling programs in Angola, Bolivia, Brasil, Egypt, Nigeria, Russia, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Our principal and staff have worked side by side with industry engineers and managers, financiers, regulators, and third party stakeholders/NGOs in performing these assessments.

Acorn developed a protocol and a set of tools for guiding environmental and socioeconomic impact assessment in a complete and consistent manner worldwide.  The tool includes guidance to help host-country consultants and experts develop responsive execution plans, collect the data required, evaluate impacts, and document results in a world-class manner. We can apply these same tools to future assessments.