ABSTRACT
In the industry study Breaking New Ground: Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development (MMSD) (IIED , 2002), the authors outlined what we consider to be the fundamental driver behind the social licence to operate concept. Simply stated, that the industry “is currently distrusted by many of the people it deals with day to day”. Without proffering a definition, the MMSD authors declared that industry players had “failed to convince some of its constituents and stakeholders that it has the “social licence to operate” in many parts of the world” (IIED, 2002, p.xiv). As we understand it, the social licence concept as used in the
MMSD report represented the sector’s efforts at reaching out to stakeholders-global to local-and a broad attempt to articulate the many ways in which companies are responding to societal and community expectations.
