Social license to operate: Trust must be earned before land can be mined
Two gold mines, 3,200 km (2,000 miles) apart. Both were closed in 2006. One is still held back by the legacies of the past. One is set
to reopen in 2014. What lessons can they teach us about earning a social license to operate (SLO)?
A mining company’s SLO can often feel like a fragile thing. The consequences of a project failing to win stakeholder approval and losing its SLO have been seen all too frequently. No doubt this stems, in part, from the bad reputation that mining has in many parts of the world, caused by a poor environmental and social record and a legacy of accumulated problems. At its worst, mining is described as the most environmentally destructive activity that we undertake. And, despite the efforts of the industry to raise the bar, it’s often still seen as only as good as its latest failure.
Rosia Montana Gold Corp. is still waiting for environmental permits from the Romanian government to begin mining.
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