#1 Software for Public Comment Management and Civic Engagement

Environmental Community Engagement

Software for Review and Permitting

Environmental review turns one proposal into many technical questions. A wetlands concern may need a biologist. A traffic issue may go to transportation staff. A long letter may contain several substantive issues that must be separated, assigned, answered, reviewed, and still remain connected to the original submission.

SmartComment was shaped by this kind of formal public review work. Its environmental community engagement software gives agencies and consultants a structured path from comment intake through response documentation, without losing the context behind individual submissions.

Plan for Success: Schedule a Demo

How Has SmartComment Supported Environmental Review in Practice?

SmartComment’s environmental work shows what environmental community engagement software is designed to handle when review periods become complex.

Place beside or after the proof section to connect formal review work with the field investigation behind environmental documentation

Project or Agency

Review Challenge

What SmartComment Helped the Team Do

Nanushuk Project, Alaska

Multi-year environmental review spanning pre-scoping through the final document

Created electronic comment intake, stored traditional and digital submissions together, developed project-specific topics, organized response and QA/QC teams, and helped reviewers bracket longer submissions into individual issues while preserving the original record.

Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality

More than 1,000 comment periods each year across environmental monitoring, permitting, enforcement, and related agency work

Built electronic intake, centralized submitted comments, partitioned access by department, and gave administrators tools to create and manage comment periods with dates, topics, and map locations.

Those are the handoffs that determine whether impact statement feedback remains usable months or years after the first submission arrives.

Where Does NEPA Public Comment Software Fit Into Environmental Review?

NEPA public comment software fits between public intake and the review, response, and documentation work that follows. During the public scoping process, one project can generate concerns about alternatives, wildlife, access, water, noise, land use, cultural resources, and other project-specific issues.

SmartComment helps teams organize those comments by topic or environmental criterion, route individual issues to subject matter experts, and maintain the connection between the submission and its response. Build a Document can connect feedback to specific document sections, creating a clearer path for NEPA documentation throughout an EIS review.

Aerial view of a river winding through wetlands in Weaver, Minnesota
Example of an industrial project and a dam alongside a forested river in Genoa, WI

How Do Permitting Public Comment Workflows Differ?

Permits rarely generate one uniform type of comment. A proposed discharge permit may produce technical water-quality questions, neighboring property concerns, monitoring requests, and broader objections to the project itself.

SmartComment’s permitting public comment software supports permitting workflows by helping agencies direct different issues to the right reviewers without separating them from the administrative record. At Wyoming DEQ, Air Quality, Water Quality, Land Quality, Industrial Siting, and Solid and Hazardous Waste teams could manage their own comment periods within separate departmental environments.

Purpose-built permitting public comment software is especially useful when several divisions or subject matter experts share responsibility for the same record. Staff can work on assigned issues while maintaining a clear connection to the submission that prompted the review.

Build a Defensible Environmental Review Record

Good environmental community engagement software should make public participation easier to manage without flattening complex comments into simple totals. SmartComment helps teams connect intake, issue classification, review assignments, response drafting, QA/QC, and final documentation in one defensible process.

Explore SmartComment’s platform features or request a demo to discuss your next environmental review or permitting project.

U.S. EPA research laboratory water tower surrounded by trees

What Everyone is Saying...

"SmartComment is fantastic. It combines ease of use with transparency and has upped our public engagement game significantly. It has saved huge amounts of time as we no longer have to respond to public records requests because all of the comments are already online. It has also increased the amount of comments we receive for permits and regulation changes, making government more accessible and transparent. Just what Alaska was looking for!"
Jason BruneCommissioner, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation
"SmartComment is a game-changer!!! The SmartComment software provides the public with easy comment entry, interactive mapping, and a comment dashboard to provide efficient management of comments and easily display comment analytics for ‘comment tracking’. SmartComment gives staff the ability to take an automated approach to something that was done manually before to increase productivity and efficiency."
Mason PerroneAssistant Chief, Rhode Island Division of Statewide Planning
"Using SmartComment to manage our public comment periods provides a clear and streamlined user experience for our stakeholders. Behind the scenes, we have received incredible support from the SmartComment team when training our users or managing high profile or special projects."
Katie WoltAgency Rules Coordinator, Washington State Department of Ecology
"SmartComment has been immensely helpful in handling hundreds of our public comment periods every year. It meets the public's needs to easily provide electronic comments to our agency, while helping us organize and respond in a timely manner."
Keith GuilleOutreach Program Manager, Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality
"SmartComment has enabled more people in more places to share their comments with our agency. Not only does SmartComment provide a beautiful and accessible user interface, but it also includes helpful tools for managing and responding to comments, making our agency’s work more efficient and effective."
Elizabeth Koniers BrownDirector, Delaware River Basin Commission
"SmartComment has been a game-changer for us! It helps us gain input on our standards, and the responsive vendor ensures a seamless experience. Easy-to-use with robust reporting, making data-driven decisions has never been more effortless."
Donna MerrickProduct Enhancement Principal, URAC
“SmartComment is allowing us to cast a wider net and providing a way to categorize and easily understand the information.”
Sharon JayeExecutive Director
"Handwritten comments are a thing of the past. SmartComment expedited our responses to public comments.”
James SantosProject Manager, Parsons
A green icon with two people in a circle.
Request A Demo
Facebook Twitter Linkedin