An impact scale can be expressed either verbally under terms such as ‘increase’ – ‘decrease’ – ‘not affected’; or  ‘no impact’ – ‘minor impact’, ‘moderate impact’ – ‘major impact’; or numerically such as -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3.  Where possible, each of these values is linked to quantitative intervals, for example: 

The selection of the respective interval values was based on an extended literature review of previous research surveys as well as on desktop research. Where no references could be found, the experience of the SPROUT partners involved was employed. The main purpose of this research was to give orientation and to align stakeholder’s inputs to the impact assessments. The resulting SPROUT Consequence Matrix which provides intervals for the respective indicators is provided here: Consequence Matrix

In this step, stakeholders are asked to assess the sustainability impacts of three scenarios that have been developed for each city: two scenarios are based on the outcome of the cross-impact balance analysis, and the third one is the result of the developments deemed most likely by local stakeholders. 

The assessment builds upon the consequence matrix, as developed in the previous step. The assessment would be carried out in face-to-face workshops in which stakeholders discuss and agree on a value per indicator.  

Due to travel and meeting restrictions under the Covid-19 pandemic, the implementation of physical meetings and workshops was not possible in the SPROUT project. Instead, stakeholder input was collected either via online surveys or in virtual workshops which were organised by the SPROUT cities. 

Depending on the chosen format, two different approaches to aggregate stakeholders’ opinions into one single value per indicator were followed: (1) cities that implemented virtual workshops followed a direct consensus building approach, with stakeholders negotiating and agreeing on the value per indicator during the meeting. (2) Cities that collected responses through individual contacts with stakeholders used the 70% majority rule. That means, a consensus was considered as reached, when 70% of the stakeholders agreed in a specific survey question. In cases where the stakeholder’s opinion diverged strongly, different responses were noted.

A detailed description of the steps is provided in SPROUT Deliverable 3.2 Sustainability impact analysis of city-specific scenarios, Chapter 2 Methodology.

The following graph shows stakeholders’ assessment of the changes in the share of transport under Valenica’s scenario 1:

The stakeholder involvement would normally be conducted in focus group meetings. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, however, the assessment of impacts was done via an online survey. An example survey is provided in the “tools and methods” section below.

Still, some cities implemented a virtual workshop for reaching consensus among their stakeholders. To support the local team, SPROUT partners compiled a guidance document: available here