Project Summary

Client: Provincial Crown Corporation

Project: Public Acceptance Analysis

Situation

A major provincial Crown Corporation wanted an assessment as to whether another major corporation’s proposed project would receive public acceptance. Successful completion of the project would have an influence on future investment decisions for the Crown Corporation. However, the analysis had to be completed without any direct use of public opinion research.

Goal

To establish whether the public would allow the development of this potentially controversial project without significant opposition.

Activities

To come to an informed conclusion without the use of direct opinion research, we had to devise an alternative analytical strategy. We combined the review of past available public opinion research on similar projects and other controversial projects, opinion research on broader viewpoints of local area residents, news clippings, publicly available materials on and from interested stakeholders, reports on proceedings with local municipalities on the project, briefings from the company proposing the project, interviews with certain key stakeholders and a review of the approval process for such projects.

Results

We provided an opinion to the client that indicated our belief that the company would be able to achieve sufficient public consent to proceed with this project. The Crown Corporation agreed with our conclusion and integrated this into their planning. The proposed project is currently proceeding having achieved the required public consent to develop the project.