Every project, whatever its size, has an impact on the local and national economy, through the jobs it supports, the wages it pays and the purchases it makes from suppliers. Understanding and evidencing that impact can be critical to the success of a project, and it is just as important to understand how economic conditions affect a project as how the project affects the economy.

Dr Benjamin Warner has assessed the economic impact of projects and organisations across the public and private sectors, including five of Ireland’s leading cultural institutions, the redevelopment of the Tivoli site in Cork, and a wide range of investments by Tirlán. Impact evidence is used for a number of reasons:

• Funding: Funders want to see what an investment will deliver for the wider economy, as well as for the organisation making it.
• Planning and consent: Setting out the benefits to the local economy can have a powerful effect on how a development is viewed, especially during planning processes.
• Advocacy: Clear, credible numbers help boards, communities and decision makers understand the value of an institution or investment.

A custom input-output model

Impacts are estimated using a custom input-output model developed by Dr Warner. It builds on the CSO’s 2022 tables, updated to 2024, and includes a regional impact assessment. Because the model is built and maintained in house, it can be run quickly and adapted to the question being asked, and every assumption is transparent and open to review.

What is offered

• Economic impact assessments: These assessments estimate the jobs, wages and economic output supported by a project, organisation or investment, for both new and existing activity. They include the direct impact, the indirect impact through supply chain purchases, and the induced impact when employees spend their wages in the local economy.
• Regional impact analysis: Using the regional breakdown in the model, impacts can be shown at national and regional level, so that the benefits to the area where a project is based are set out clearly.
• Support for planning and consent applications: Economic evidence for developers, prepared in a form that can be submitted alongside the other documents in an application.
• Social and wider value assessment: Economic impact captures only part of the value of many projects. Where it is relevant, an assessment can be extended to cover social and wellbeing value, as in recent work for cultural institutions.

Dr Warner can lead an assessment in full, or provide the impact analysis within a wider team. See Services for the ways of working together.