The challenge
Building mutual trust between community and industry
In Australia, community concerns strongly influence the way the minerals industry operates and how governments regulate it.
The industry is required to fulfil its formal regulatory conditions (its license to mine) as well as taking into consideration these community concerns (its social license to operate).
For more than a decade we have undertaken research to understand what it means to hold a social licence in the Australian minerals industry.
This work aims to assist industry, communities and government to understand what constitutes a social licence in Australia and support relationships between these stakeholders built on mutual trust.
Our response
Social research providing insight into issues
With decades of experience working alongside industry partners, and recognised expertise in conducting social research, we have defined benchmarks for the social performance of the minerals industry and allowed industry stakeholders to engage with each other on the issues that matter.
Our industry knowledge and scientific skills in measuring and modelling 'social licence' is able to show industry where to invest to develop genuine, trust based relationships with community stakeholders.
We have measured and modelled the critical elements of social licence, demonstrating:
- as stakeholder expectations and experiences of mining impacts converge, acceptance and approval of an operation increases
- trust plays a critical role in facilitating a social licence to operate.