Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a well-known concept for businesses working with environmental resources,Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a well-known concept for businesses working with environmental resources, but Ecosoul is the first company in Latvia to integrate this assessment into an EIA.

Is only the minimum necessary?
Social impact assessments are not mandatory in Latvia, but some businesses are already faced with them when negotiating with international financial institutions and cooperation partners. The question arises: "How have you assessed your impact on society?" The result is a list of everything that fits the keywords "society" and "impact" - one survey, a photo of a public consultation, a footage of a speech by a municipality. The same happens when it comes to filling in the blanks in a sustainability report.
To avoid a formal "tick-box" approach, EIAs should include tailored social impact assessments. This is also in line with the three dimensions of sustainable development - environment, society and economy. This balance ensures that economic growth does not come at the expense of environmental or social well-being. The benefits to developers of community impact assessment range from project enhancement to good neighbourly relations. In apartment buildings, good neighbours will always be helpful, looking after each other's homes. A good neighbour in a solar park will let you know if hail has smashed a panel or if a solar park is being vandalised. What's in it for the neighbour? One of the tasks of a social impact assessment is to find out: what are the opportunities, challenges and needs of local communities? Is the industry's gold standard of giving a playground to the community really always necessary? Businesses tend to accuse stakeholders of living in myths. But businesses themselves should recognise that their assumptions can also be wrong.

'Investing early in a robust SIA saves both money and time in the future by avoiding potential conflicts. In fact, it is impossible to build good neighbourly relations without such an assessment,' says Weronika Felcis, Social Impact Expert at Ecosoul.
How to protect nature, not the calendar
A successful project is one where the benefits outweigh the losses. Wind parks, which can have significant negative impacts on nature such as bats and birds, are no exception. Currently, to protect bats, turbines are restricted on the basis of weather conditions rather than the presence of bats. As a result, there are hundreds of hours during the year when no green energy is produced, even when bats are not actually flying.
Smart monitoring systems offered by Ecosoul help to solve this problem. With ultrasonic sensors and artificial intelligence technology, the presence of bats is detected in real time and turbines are stopped only when really necessary. Similarly with bird protection, we need to protect birds by looking at the birds, not the calendar. Smart monitoring of birds is done with cameras and artificial intelligence. This means that wind farms can generate more electricity while significantly reducing collisions between bats and birds and wind turbines.

Ecosoul founder Arta Kauķe says that such unprecedented data would also allow experts to draw conclusions about animal populations, migration patterns and behavioural changes in the area around wind turbines and to develop science- and data-based conservation recommendations.
Comprehensive research and solutions combining environmental, social and economic knowledge are rare, but quality results can be achieved outside universities. In business, conclusions need to be quick and tailored to adaptive project management. Ecosoul's experience shows that science can be successfully transformed in action by working in a multidisciplinary team of experts.
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