When tasked to work on a major new international airport development in Southeast Asia,
Global Ecology and Environmental Group business, Earth Active was appointed as part of the lenders’ Independent Environmental and Social Consultant (IESC) team. Currently under construction, the airport is expected to be one of the region’s largest aviation infrastructure projects.
Beyond the airport itself, the development is expected to support wider economic growth through improved connectivity, increased tourism, expanded trade and logistics activity, and the creation of both temporary and long-term employment opportunities throughout the surrounding region.
The project presented a highly complex environmental and social risk profile
Construction activities were taking place within a sensitive wetland environment, home to significant populations of migratory waterbirds, qualifying the environment as a Critical Habitat under IFC Performance Standard 6 (PS6). On top of biodiversity considerations, the project also faced challenges relating to flood risk, large-scale land reclamation works, developer capacity, and long-term environmental governance.
The solution
Earth Active supported a consortium of international lenders in assessing the developer’s compliance with IFC Performance Standards, particularly PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS6. The challenge was not simply identifying environmental and social risks, but the provision of vital expertise in confirming that management systems, mitigation strategies, and implementation pathways were robust enough to support lender confidence across a multi-phase infrastructure project.
A major focus area was biodiversity and critical habitat management (IFC PS6). Working as part of the wider IESC team, Earth Active’s biodiversity specialists supported review and oversight of biodiversity strategies associated with the airport’s location within an internationally significant flyway. The wetland habitats within the project area are part of this migration corridor and they support a range of migratory and coastal bird species. Biodiversity offset and compensation discussions therefore focused not only on compliance with IFC PS6 Biodiversity Net Gain requirements, but also on supporting the long-term resilience of the wider wetland ecosystem and the species dependent upon it.
This included engagement around the development of complex biodiversity offset and compensation approaches intended to align with IFC PS6 Net Gain requirements. It also included broader environmental management systems intended to support long-term compliance throughout construction and operation of the airport. Fundamentally, the process considered offset feasibility criteria across multiple disciplines – notably ecological, technical, financial, and social.
The project required continuous coordination between lenders, the developer and multiple technical specialists across several years of enabling early construction works. Earth Active contributed to ongoing environmental oversight through document reviews, technical meetings, dedicated capacity building workshops, requests for information, quarterly monitoring activities, and lender reporting processes.
In particular, Earth Active’s team balanced rigorous independent review with practical capacity support for the developer. As the project evolved, the team worked to strengthen understanding of lender expectations and implementation requirements while maintaining the independence required of the IESC role. This proved especially important on a project where governance systems, technical delivery, and environmental management processes were all developing simultaneously alongside construction activities.
The impact
More recently, the project was selected as a case study discussion during an international finance sector workshop focused on implementation of international environmental and social standards on large-scale infrastructure developments. Discussions focused on adaptive management approaches, biodiversity offsets, governance strengthening, and the practical realities of implementing IFC Performance Standards and Equator Principles on a complex coastal site with Critical Habitat considerations.
The engagement demonstrates the increasingly important role lender-aligned environmental and social oversight plays in large-scale infrastructure delivery, particularly where projects intersect with sensitive biodiversity features and evolving international finance requirements. It also highlights how effective IESC support extends beyond compliance review alone, requiring pragmatic risk prioritisation, stakeholder coordination, and the ability to support credible long-term environmental governance within highly complex delivery sectors.