Trust, engagement, information and social licence—insights from New Zealand

Abstract

This research examines trust at the government, industry, community nexus, as mediated by media, and its effect on social licence. We attempted to understand levels and importance of trust in New Zealand's natural resource sectors by examining ways of building, maintaining and assessing public trust in a post-truth society. We surveyed 128 New Zealand public and held a stakeholder forum about perceptions of trust in relation to natural resource sectors. The results provide indications of novel advances around trust and trustworthiness. Honesty was highlighted as the top influencer of trustworthiness and trust, and dishonesty as the top influencer of distrust. In contrast to other literature, we find a nuanced understanding of trust among respondents in relation to the mediarespondents distrusted actors cited in media more than the media outlet or platform itself. Further, our findings suggest there is no discernible change in trust levels in the post-truth era, in this context.

A future agenda for environmental restorative justice?

“…Principally the licence was extended to resource industries like forestry, paper pulp and fishing (Edwards et al, 2019;Gunningham et al, 2004), and recently further applied to racing business and wildlife management (Duncan et al, 2018;Hampton & Teh-White, 2019).…”

“…For instance, where a company cares little about reputational loss (due to having no brand to lose), or where it prioritises shareholder/corporate strategies, the licence is unlikely to gain a foothold (Gunningham et al, 2004). Moreover, if the licence is ambiguous, its application can opportunistically veer into corporate spin or lead the company to share only positive or confusing information (Edwards et al, 2019). There is a risk too of overlooking non-visible environmental harms (Lester, 2016).…”

“…There is a risk too of overlooking non-visible environmental harms (Lester, 2016). From the community's side, a 'company town' may defend the company or lack the 'power to resist corporate activity' (Demuijnck & Fasterling, 2016: 681), whilst if the company chooses to narrowly define 'community', it might selectively determine who is worth listening to, demonising those sectors of the community it feels threatened by as being 'extremist', 'irrelevant' or 'irrational' (Edwards et al, 2019;Gunningham et al, 2004).In return, restorative justice has much to offer social licence scholarship and practice. Restorative justice can offer a neutral, safe environment in which to have structured discussions about uncertain aspects of the social licence, which may be especially beneficial to alleviating ambiguity over what and who is contributing to it.…”

Environmental sustainability disclosures in annual reports of mining companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX)

“…Societal expectations about the environmental, social, and cultural ‘performance’ of industries involved in the development, use or management of natural resources have changed over recent decades ( Edwards et al., 2019 ). Communities have increased expectations regarding the benefits they receive from the presence of such industries, along with assurances that the industry is properly regulated ( Prno, 2013 ).…”

Thoroughbred Racehorse Welfare through the Lens of ‘Social License to Operate—With an Emphasis on a U.S. Perspective

“…Trust is emerging to be the most important element of a contemporary SLO, not as a by-product of organizational practices, but as a result of relationships being built/re-built each day [23,32,38]. As discussed earlier, trust is based on the shared economy, where online users rate, review, and comment peer to peer, and businesses or organizations can choose to demonstrate listening skills by responding [39][40][41].…”