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Earning a social license to operate: Social acceptability and resource maintenance in Latin America
... A social license is usually granted when a forest management organisation's social values and forest management practices satisfy the accepted norms of the communities interested in and affected by its operations (Arnot 2009;Siltaoja & Vehkapera 2010). The lack of a social license can potentially hinder the expansion of the plantation estate and affect forest management operations through the introduction of additional regulations and restrictions, and the reduction in access to resources (Gunningham et al. 2004;Joyce & Thompson 2000). ...
... Recognizing this cumulative influence of multiple interactions, the continuum acknowledges the positive influence of reputation capital, where the SLO gained at a local level can help to promote positive dialogue and relationships at broader levels of SLO (Joyce & Thompson 2000). Improved reputation capital resulting from compliance with micro-contract level SLOs brings credibility and trust to forest management organisations that demonstrate a proven capacity and commitment to satisfy the various expectations voiced by communities (Joyce & Thompson 2000). ...
... Recognizing this cumulative influence of multiple interactions, the continuum acknowledges the positive influence of reputation capital, where the SLO gained at a local level can help to promote positive dialogue and relationships at broader levels of SLO (Joyce & Thompson 2000). Improved reputation capital resulting from compliance with micro-contract level SLOs brings credibility and trust to forest management organisations that demonstrate a proven capacity and commitment to satisfy the various expectations voiced by communities (Joyce & Thompson 2000). ...
... From a business perspective, the advantages of SLO for companies are: improved corporate reputation, ongoing access to resources, reduced regulation, improved market competitiveness, strengthened stakeholder relationships, and positive effects on employees (Esteves & Vanclay, 2009;Gunningham et al., 2004;Joyce & Thompson, 2000). The need to be perceived as being sustainable has encouraged the extractive industries to work closely with their stakeholders (including communities) to develop and maintain a SLO, and it is considered that a failure to do so would affect their financial performance (Prno & Slocombe, 2012). ...
... Although the concept of SLO is considered difficult if not impossible to measure (Jijelava & Vanclay, 2017), there have been various efforts to develop models to explain what constitutes a SLO (Gunningham et al., 2004;Joyce & Thompson, 2000;Moffat & Zhang, 2014;Prno & Slocombe, 2012;Thomson & Boutilier, 2011). We use the model proposed by Thomson and Boutilier (2011), since we believe this model to be most suitable for the context of the forest industry in Indonesia, where legitimacy, credibility, and trust are often obscured and/or questioned by environmental NGOs. ...
The concept of Social License to Operate (SLO) has predominantly been applied in the extractives industry, and its understanding and application within forestry has been limited to date. Nevertheless, achieving a SLO is crucial for forest companies, especially given that forestry has long time horizons, high exposure to the global market, and many and varied stakeholders. We examine how forestry companies operating in Indonesia attempt to gain a SLO from their host communities. We analyse the roles of the three main stakeholder groups in forestry operations in Indonesia: companies, communities and governments. We specifically examine: (1) whether the concepts that underpin SLO (legitimacy, credibility, and trust) can be applied to the practices of the forest industry in Indonesia; (2) the general applicability of the SLO concept in the Indonesian context and (3) what can be done to improve SLO practices in the Indonesian forest industry. We argue that obtaining and maintaining a SLO is an outcome of complex interactions between many factors and actors, rather than being the direct result of company actions. In the Indonesian context, SLO is a relatively new and not fully understood or utilized concept. Its value has not been fully appreciated by all actors. By examining two forestry companies operating in Central Kalimantan, we scrutinize the roles of companies, communities, and the local and central government in the governance of SLO to create a better understanding of this emerging concept in the Indonesian context.
... SLO: the 'collaborative' approach SLO remains poorly defined and understood (Raufflet et al. 2013; Bice 2014) and there is ongoing debate about whether the concept itself in its assorted guises is useful (Kemp & Owen 2013). What is clear, however, is that the SLO cannot be defined by regulation; it must be collaborative, be specific to individual operations and projects, and has to be based on a site's overall social performance on a continuously maintained basis (Joyce & Thomson 2000). Although essentially intangible, reflecting the broad-based sentiment of stakeholders towards a specific activity, SLO can be withheld or enforced by reference to the 'court of public appeal' and/or linked politically to the grant or otherwise of various legal licences (Thomson & Boutilier 2013). ...
... Thus, SLO is often linked tightly to an operation's legitimacy (e.g. Joyce & Thomson 2000; Prno & Slocombe 2012). An important question for SLO is, therefore, who grants it and who gets it (Bice 2014). ...
In the past decade, the extractive sector has embraced social responsibility. Despite this, broad-based support for many extractive projects and operations remains elusive. Community opposition to resource projects appears to be increasing, even where compliance-based social impact assessments (SIAs) and generous benefits are in place. In seeking to understand this, the authors explore unintended contradictions in the implementation of regulatory SIA and the social development programmes (SDPs) being pursued by many extractive companies. Communities continue to mistrust extractive companies in the face of escalating regulation and offsetting development agendas. The authors contend that trust can only be attained by mobilising a company's core competencies, achieving credibility through total transparency, and maintaining appropriate roles and responsibilities of companies, governments and communities. The article presents an alternative approach, centred on the trust-building necessary to a social licence to operate. Such an approach involves ‘collaborative moderation’, aligns with the ‘creating shared value’ concept advocated by Porter and Kramer, utilises best practice SIA and uses SDP only where appropriate.
... (Post et al., 2002.) Hence as Joyce andThomson (2000)point out, social risk has risen as an important aspect for corporations, and it should be managed throughout the project cycle and its assessments, for instance in the case of mining activities in Latin America. Social risk is important for a number of reasons at the corporate level, especially in terms of risk to the company brand as well as to shareholder relations. ...
... Social risk is important for a number of reasons at the corporate level, especially in terms of risk to the company brand as well as to shareholder relations. At the level of individual projects, its primary component is social acceptability, and the main tool for managing this is the so-called ''Social Licence to Operate'' (Joyce and Thomson, 2000). Concerning Brazil, Bandeira and Barra (2009) argue that social responsibility is a discourse that is under construction. ...
Purpose
– The aim of this paper is to focus on the legitimacy problems faced by the Finnish forest industry in the Brazilian context, specifically from the perspective of the region's indigenous communities: the Tupinikim, the Guarani and the Pataxó.
Design/methodology/approach
– The method used is qualitative research with a case study approach. The empirical data are based on the fieldwork in the states of Espírito Santo and Bahia. The aim was to scrutinize the corporate tactics in gaining societal legitimacy, both in Brazil and in Finland; these were categorized into thematic groups.
Findings
– The legitimacy of the Finnish companies becomes questionable due to the unethical tactics of their Brazilian business partner, Aracruz Celulose SA. When the company takes its “marginal” stakeholders' demands seriously and commits itself to them in diverse ways (economically, ecologically etc.), corporate social responsibility becomes a reality. The search for legitimacy also requires the company to change its corporate knowledge production systems, and also requires a willingness on the part of the company to encounter different types of knowledge that are locally attached.
Originality/value
– The study offers new information about the relationship between multinational corporations and local communities in Brazil – especially from the perspective of indigenous communities. The paper also contributes to legitimation research. Finally, the authors offer some concluding remarks considering the new cultural environments of Finnish companies operating in the global South.
... In the context of South Africa, SLO has not been thoroughly researched. In short, SLO is understood to mean that "a mining project is seen as having the broad, ongoing approval and acceptance of society to conduct its activities" (Joyce andThomson, 2000, cited in Prno 2013: 577). In the context of South Africa, the underpinning factor that plays a significant role in whether mines are issued with a mining license by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) and whether the mining community eventually issues or denies the mine an SLO is the mines' SLPs. ...
... In the context of South Africa, SLO has not been thoroughly researched. In short, SLO is understood to mean that "a mining project is seen as having the broad, ongoing approval and acceptance of society to conduct its activities" (Joyce andThomson, 2000, cited in Prno 2013: 577). In the context of South Africa, the underpinning factor that plays a significant role in whether mines are issued with a mining license by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) and whether the mining community eventually issues or denies the mine an SLO is the mines' SLPs. ...
... A higher level of social licence, which is approval, could be obtained if the project was seen as credible. The highest level involves perceptions of trust [129]. In most cases it is easier to see where the SLO has been lost rather than to point to examples where it is still present in operational terms [123]. ...
Restorative justice within the energy sector focuses on the needs of the victims, such as nations, citizens and nature. It restores them to their original position prior to a damaging activity. The importance of restorative justice is that it can be a proactive policy approach to preventing harm and conflict within the energy sector if applied and accounted for at the outset of an energy project or activity. For many years energy justice scholarship has had three tenets central to its core, however, this research focuses on restorative justice that has been advanced since 2017. This review aims to capture the addition of restorative justice and provides a comparative law and case study perspective and explores the application of restorative justice across three countries Iran, Malaysia, and Canada with a focus on the oil and gas sector. In what is a first in-depth exploration of restorative justice our results confirm that restorative justice if applied can act to ensure the enforcement of energy justice, i.e., moving from theory to practice. This research also highlights how there exists a number of legal tools that have restorative justice as a guiding principle such as the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, the Energy Financial Reserve Obligation (EFRO), and the Social License to Operate (SLO). These are gaining in application and can ensure restorative justice moves further from a conceptual theory to practice.
CSR and sustainability are evolving concepts that need to be understood over time and in the context of events and conditions. They are fuzzily defined, they overlap and they are often (mis)understood synonymously. One of the authors understands them hierarchically, with sustainability as a subcategory of CSR. The other understands them as complementary, with CSR providing a narrow organisational perspective, and sustainability providing a broader systemic – planetary – perspective. In framing CSR and sustainability as First World problems, we recognise that we limit the perspective and stay within established boundaries of business models and corporate sustainability. At the same time, we propose to reframe the problem toward next generation solutions which no longer regard commercial success as the first priority. With regard to our initial research findings from interviews in Germany, the UK, Bulgaria and Romania, we conclude that the First World perspective is inadequate to describe the problem and possible solutions. Instead, we propose that sustainability communication become a strategic tool to reframe the question and thus open up new paths for innovative solutions.
The demand for energy throughout the world grows each day, and coal will be needed to meet a large portion of that demand. Coal mining techniques in the Appalachian and Midwestern coalfields have evolved to mine larger land areas and multiple seams at greater depths. New reclamation methods and approaches also must evolve to minimize cumulative impacts on aquatic, terrestrial, and human resources. Mined land reforestation practices over the past 80 years illustrate the evolution of reclamation in the eastern coalfields of the U. S. Prior to the implementation of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA), tree planting was synonymous with reclamation. Grassland reclamation became the dominant approach post-SMCRA. As stakeholders of the mining and reclamation process have begun to appreciate the value of forest ecosystems, there is greater emphasis on ensuring land and forest restoration and proper ecosystem functioning on reclaimed mined land. A forestry reclamation approach is supplanting grassland reclamation where forests are the logical post-mining land use. Restoring forestland capability, native species, and watershed protection are positive outcomes. However, greater public demand for stream protection, water quality, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, native wildlife habitat, and human protection may require a more comprehensive ecosystem reclamation approach. In my view, the components of such an approach already have a good basis in science and could be applied through a process of adaptive management in the event such an approach is needed to help the coal industry in the U. S. maintain its social license to operate.
Mining companies operating in Latin America are giving Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) more attention than before, in part because of the rise in mining-related conflicts and criticism about the industry's social and environmental impacts. Companies propose that CSR could play an important role in mitigating conflict or lessening its risk. This article argues that the opposite may also be the case. As the mining conflict in El Pangui, Southeast Ecuador transforms social territorial dynamics, CSR also has a function in those transformations by contributing to the polarisation of conflict. The paper provides a brief ethnographic account of the ongoing conflict in El Pangui, and critically examines the moves made by the company, Corriente Resources Inc., to illustrate how CSR discourses and programmes may play an adverse role in social conflict.
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