The objective of this paper was to investigate the state of SIA practice in South Africa after 16 years of mandatory EIA under two legislative regimes,by evaluating the quality of a sample of SIARs in South Africa. The Lee and Colley review package was adapted to review SIA report quality. The quality review findings reveal that SIA can still be regarded
as the “lesser sibling” of EIA, with most SIA reports of a generally only just satisfactory quality, with a distinct but modest improvement from the ECA to the NEMA regulations. These results suggest that SIA report quality is driven more strongly by good practice considerations in the South African SIA practitioner community, which bodes well for future SIA practice in South Africa, and supports the contention of Aucamp et al. (2011) that SIA should go beyond minimum requirements, to
obtaining a social license to operate.When that has been achieved, perhaps SIA will no longer be the lesser sibling of EIA in South Africa.