What Gives You a Social Licence? An Exploration of the Social Licence to Operate in the Australian Mining Industry

Abstract

This article analyses the ways in which major, multinational mining companies operating within Australia understand sustainable development and articulate their "social licence to operate". The article contributes a novel perspective to ongoing discussions about the social licence by exploring the ways in which leading Australian mining companies define and assert their social licences through sustainable development discourse. A content and discourse analysis of 18 sustainability reports across a four year period, supplemented by qualitative interview data, draws out these issues. While most companies use these reports to confirm beliefs in the necessity of a social licence, the ways in which the licence is specifically defined and maintained are not generally made explicit. Additionally, key theoretical criteria required for a social licence, such as free, prior and informed consent, appear to be overlooked. In conclusion, the article suggests ways in which criteria for a social licence within the mining industry could be defined more clearly and raises consequent questions to shape future research.

Social licence to operate and impact assessment

“…Since the former Placer Dome executive Jim Cooney introduced the notion of an SLO to the mining and extractives industry in 1997 (Thomson & Boutilier 2011), the concept has become pervasive, appearing on corporate websites, touted by consultants and written into sustainability reports (Bice 2014). Indeed, and although much of this issue remains focused on examples from the mining and extractive industries, SLO is beginning to be adopted much more widely.…”

“…Proponent companies, community activists and governments alike appropriate its evocative language to support their particular values and objectives (Lacey et al 2012). While an SLO remains metaphorical (Bice 2014), its entry into regular industry parlance has seen it take on rhetorical and pragmatic influence which stretches beyond informal agreement (see, for example, Prno & Slocombe 2012;Parsons & Moffat 2014a). Indeed, anecdotal evidence from the field suggests that impact assessment (IA) practitioners are increasingly being asked to assist project proponents to measure and monitor their SLO, although the relative newness of the concept means that research has yet fully to reflect this trend (Prno & Slocombe 2012).…”

“…DIP 2010) are more strongly emphasising the power, role and expectations of the 'licence'. This has led to scholarly investigations about the processes necessary for 'social licensing' (Moffat & Zhang 2014), understanding the SLO as a form of social contract (Lacey & Lamont 2013), defining the licensing criteria and brokers (Bice 2014), measuring the degree of SLO held (Thomson & Boutilier 2011) and the related governance mechanisms necessary to facilitate and maintain an SLO once earned (Prno & Slocombe 2012).…”

Integrating impact and relational dimensions of social licence and social impact assessment

“…Analysis of industry texts suggests that it oversimplifies complex relationship and communication processes (Parsons & Moffat Forthcoming). Yet companies that account for and report on their sustainable development impacts clearly conceptualise these impacts as closely linked to social licence, even if they struggle to account for relatively intangible aspects of stakeholder relationships and to define social licence itself (Bice 2014). Hence we now consider SIA more closely.…”

The role of dialogue in social licence to operate in the extractives sector

“…There have been hurdles faced in the translation of the concept of social licence into practice (Bice, 2014) and criticisms of the concept of SLO (e.g., Owen, 2016;. It has been argued, for example, that the original approach taken to gaining a social licence was one of risk management: viewing stakeholders as a risk that needed to be managed, often with little understanding of the social context .…”