Impact Without Illusion

The most dangerous word in environmental evaluation is 'impact.' Not because impact does not matter — it matters enormously — but because the demand for impact language routinely produces findings that cannot be sustained under scrutiny, conclusions that exceed what the evidence supports, and an institutional culture that rewards confident claims over honest ones. This paper argues for a different standard: evaluation that is serious about what it can know, rigorous about how it gets there, and clear-eyed about what that means for the people who commission it.