The Future of Environmental Reporting Powered by Aurecon air®

Aurecon air® followed a rigorous design process to meet and exceed the design brief for the HumeLink project:

Research: Extensive research and stakeholder consultations with Transgrid, government, and the community were conducted to understand their needs and pain points - crucial for developing a user-centric solution.

Concept: Aurecon’s Creative Technology and Environment and Planning teams collaborated to conceptualise a digital platform transforming traditional Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) into interactive digital experiences. Key features included interactive maps, videos, images, dashboards, audio, temporal data playback, and 3D scenes.

Prototyping: An initial prototype was developed and piloted with two major transport authorities in Victoria, Australia. Feedback was critical in refining the platform’s features and usability. Iterative design methodology ensured continuous improvements and alignment with user needs.

Design: The platform was built with a focus on accessibility, interactivity, and data transparency. Information was presented in a user-friendly, device-agnostic format, allowing seamless data access and interrogation. Advanced features like text-to-map capabilities and document revisioning enhanced user experience and engagement.

Testing: Comprehensive testing ensured the platform’s functionality and performance. The HumeLink digital EIS underwent rigorous validation, ensuring accuracy, reliability, and user satisfaction. Feedback from stakeholders was used to make final adjustments.

Implementation: The final design was implemented, transforming the traditional EIS into an engaging digital format. The platform facilitated a better understanding of the project’s environmental, social, and economic impacts, streamlined decision-making, and enhanced community engagement.

Aurecon air® exceeded the design brief of addressing the complexities of environmental reporting, as evidenced by the degree of community engagement. The HumeLink digital EIS received 141 formal submissions for a project spanning 5 local government areas and 360km.

Analytical monitoring showed 2,000+ community members accessed 20,000 pages digitally during the public display, highlighting the platform’s effectiveness in supporting community awareness and understanding.

Designed to support projects simultaneously, Aurecon air® ensures efficient management thanks to templates, themed settings, and AI-enabled content generation, enhancing rollout speed and consistency.

Functionality
Aurecon air® features a user-friendly interface with interactive maps, videos, images, dashboards, audio, and 3D scenes, accessible across multiple devices. This ensures transparent, evidence-based reporting with easy data interaction for all stakeholders, including community members, government officials, and project developers. The design enables users to scroll through report chapters alongside interactive content.

Aesthetics
The platform presents information transparently with visual appeal, ensures high-quality data representation, making complex information digestible. Advanced features like text-to-map capabilities and document revisioning enhance user experience and ensure data accuracy. This enables environmental and geospatial professionals to produce and publish digital reports without needing digital development support, transforming project delivery and generating efficiencies.

Sustainability
Aurecon air® provides clear and transparent environmental data, aiding stakeholders in making informed decisions that protect communities and the environment. The platform enhances early project collaboration to avoid and mitigate impacts in site selection and design and reduces the need for printed reports, saving approximately 30,000+ A4 pages per EIS project.

User-experience
Directly linking report text to environmental data creates an intuitive user experience and enhanced project understanding. The HumeLink digital EIS received 141 formal submissions and was accessed by over 2,000 community members, who viewed 20,000 pages during the public display, highlighting the platform’s effectiveness in making complex environmental data accessible and engaging.

“The digital EES for SRL [Suburban Rail Loop] East makes it easier than ever for Victorians to have their say on a project of unprecedented scale and significance for Victoria – with everything online, you can explore the detail from the comfort of home.” - Minister for Suburban Rail Loop Jacinta Allan

It was a known industry problem that traditional environmental reports, often lengthy and cumbersome, hinder stakeholder understanding and delay project decisions. Aurecon air® revolutionises this process by transforming static reports into dynamic, interactive digital experiences.

Aurecon air’s® design is groundbreaking in its ability to streamline delivery and collate various forms of data into a single, interactive platform. By leveraging existing technologies and creating a user-friendly interface, Aurecon air® enables stakeholders to navigate complex environmental information effortlessly. The platform supports interactive maps, videos, images, audio, and 3D scenes, allowing users to visualise and understand project impacts in real-time.

Aurecon air’s® text-to-map capability allows users to select a sentence in the report and automatically see the corresponding data highlighted on the map. This ensures stakeholders can quickly locate relevant information, enhancing transparency and decision-making. Additionally, the platform’s device-agnostic design ensures accessibility across devices (mobile phone, tablet and desktop), democratising access to critical project information.

The platform also includes version-controlled working for reports and data, enabling stakeholders to share versions in development for review or co-development. This feature speeds up reviews, enables a no-surprises approach, and facilitates collaborative project delivery with clients, government, and community stakeholder groups.

It provides novel insight into community engagement which, previously, governments could only gain from formal submissions. Now they can understand engagement with the EIS, device used, local government area they are reading from, how long they were reading and chapters of most interest.

Aurecon air® was developed with a deep understanding of user needs. The collaborative design process involved extensive feedback from environmental specialists, project managers, government stakeholders and community members to ensure the platform met their requirements. Features like real-time collaboration, version-controlled working, intuitive navigation, and multimedia integration were specifically designed to address the diverse needs of its users, making complex data accessible and actionable.

Environmental Impact: Australia’s infrastructure requirements are evolving due to climate change, population growth, and market conditions. Aurecon air® enhances efficiency and understanding of complex infrastructure projects, enabling faster decision-making and approvals, crucial for critical energy infrastructure. For the HumeLink project, Aurecon air® helped reduce detrimental impacts on agricultural land, protected flora and fauna, and addressed steep terrain challenges. It eliminates physical documents, saving 30,000+ A4 pages per project while reducing unnecessary travel.

Commercial Impact: Aurecon air® revolutionses reporting by aiming for 100% digital project delivery, supporting multiple projects simultaneously. The platform has expanded into new areas like carbon markets, providing advanced user metrics that tailor materials and broaden reach. Leveraging carefully quality-controlled AI, Aurecon air® reduces report delivery costs, allowing funds to be redirected towards enhanced environmental or social outcomes.

Social Impact: Aurecon air® promotes environmental stewardship by increasing community awareness and understanding. The digital EIA fosters transparency, enabling engagement, accessibility, building community trust and a social license. By capturing societal expectations on sustainable development, and effectively presenting participation in decision-making, Aurecon air® creates a sense of shared ownership and collective action. It has demonstrated its ability to engage communities over vast, remote areas. For instance, Transgrid took “Aurecon air® on wheels” to the road to help regional communities access the HumeLink digital EIA and shape the project’s regulatory process.

Victoria’s Design Culture: The HumeLink digital EIS powered by Aurecon air® demonstrates how engaging communities over vast, remote areas can address environmental and community concerns, de-risk decarbonisation projects, and maintain schedules for critical energy infrastructure. This reinforces Victoria’s reputation and status as a hub for cutting-edge design and creativity, influencing practices across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Further, Aurecon air has enabled two Victorian wind farm environmental referrals to accurately describe how design has mitigated biodiversity impacts over time.

Designing out waste
Aurecon air® eliminates physical documentation, significantly reducing paper consumption. This can represent saving 30,000+ A4 pages per project. Aurecon air® enables collaborative partnerships cross-disciplines and stakeholder groups to ensure robust site selection and decision-making informing sustainability in design.

Promoting resource efficiency
The platform supports early and effective collaboration among stakeholders, ensuring that environmental impacts are identified and mitigated early in the project design. This proactive approach helps avoid unnecessary resource use and minimises negative environmental impacts. For example, in the HumeLink project, Aurecon air® facilitated decision-making that reduced impacts on agricultural land, protected flora and fauna, and addressed steep terrain challenges.

Sustainable design integration
Aurecon air® integrates infrastructure design within the environment, enabling early collaboration to enhance sustainability outcomes and avoidance of impacts. Features like interactive 3D maps, before-and-after sliders, and temporal data playback present design iterations over time, supporting transparent, evidence-based reporting. This transparency fosters trust and encourages sustainable practices throughout the project lifecycle enabling effective iterative reporting from project approvals into construction and maintenance reporting.

Supporting clean energy
By aiding the efficient delivery of critical infrastructure projects, Aurecon air® contributes to the transition to clean energy and sustainable projects as part of the wider transition to net zero. The platform’s ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously ensures that energy projects stay on schedule, benefiting the entire industry. Its design supports broader initiatives for report standardisation, map-ready data collection, automated quality control and AI-enabled generation, enhancing efficiency and ensuring high-quality outputs.

Enhancing environmental stewardship
Digital reports reduce the need for community members to travel to view physical documents, cutting down on unnecessary travel and associated carbon emissions. The platform promotes environmental stewardship by increasing public awareness and engagement with projects, fostering community trust and enhanced transparency in environmental outcomes and sustainability of major infrastructure projects.