TNNSP S01 EP01 - Who is the Community?

The questions you need to ask before you claim you've consulted them.

When I first started working in sustainability, I thought “the community” was obvious. In E&S practice, it was the people living closest to the project site, the people who were affected by the projects, the ones you could point to on a map. But the longer I’ve worked in sustainability, the more I’ve realised how slippery that word is - and how dangerous it can be when we don’t stop to define it.

We love to say, “We consulted the community.” It sounds reassuring, like we’ve done our job. But often, what we really mean is that we spoke to a few visible people - usually men, often leaders, sometimes the ones easiest to reach. Everyone else becomes invisible. It might also mean that you designated your community as a set of customers (in the case of Lufthansa), or random people around your office building (local communities), without much thought on the people who might be adversely impacted by your operations. Of course Lufthansa would argue that their customers are directly affected I.e. if they don’t fly they miss meetings, holidays, family reunions. Which is true, but it would be a little more honest and transparent to talk about the African villages around operational facilities who have to live by the noise, dust, emissions and operational traffic.

Paul Lawrence, my guest on the podcast, said it bluntly: “Communities aren’t just the people in the room. They’re the people impacted - often in ways you haven’t imagined.” He’s right. But he is also an E&S expert, so of course he shares my views on the importance of defining who our community really is.

If it was so straightforward for E&S experts, I probably wouldn’t have decided to kick off Season 1 of The No Nonsense Sustainability Podcast with this topics. I’ve seen renewable energy projects define the “community” as the nearest village, while ignoring farmers who lost access to grazing routes. I’ve seen corporate consultations scheduled at 9am in council offices, excluding women with caregiving duties, shift workers, or anyone without a car. And I’ve seen projects that proudly present glossy engagement reports, only to face protests because the people who mattered most weren’t even at the table.

The truth is: defining “the community” is not straightforward. It shifts with the project, the geography, the risks. Sometimes it includes NGOs, regulators, even your fiercest critics. And it changes over time.

So before we say, “We’ve consulted the community,” I think we need to pause and ask ourselves three honest questions:

1. Have we really included all the voices that matter?

2. Did we make engagement accessible, or did we design it for our convenience?

3. Did the community actually shape outcomes, or did we just tell them what was already decided?

I’ve learned the hard way that if you skip these questions, you pay for it later - in lost trust, opposition, and projects that fall apart.

Getting it right isn’t easy. But it’s worth it. Because when you genuinely listen, when you broaden your definition of “community,” you uncover insights that make projects stronger and outcomes fairer.

And that, to me, is what no nonsense sustainability looks like.