This toolkit has been designed in response to the social licence needs outlined within this research project. We have found that there is a need for tools that work to:
- increase transparency and trust;
- improve engagement;
- make information more accessible to diverse stakeholders; and
- help facilitate conversations between disparate groups who may not recognise shared values.
The toolkit comprises three closely aligned tools:
Together these tools can assist resources sector organisations make conscious and informed choices to engage genuinely and consistently with a wide range of stakeholders throughout the mining lifecycle.
Recognising the increasing complexity associated with mining approvals and social licence to operate, these tools aim to help organisations build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships.
The goal of the toolkit is to guide organisations toward achieving coherency, validity, and longevity in their social licence relationships, with the overarching aim of undertaking good mining.
Achieving these goals can assist with stakeholder buy-in and formulating approaches that minimise external challenges, leading to stable operating environments.
These tools offer rigorous and dynamic alternatives to established and often static methods of stakeholder identification and engagement that traditionally centre the mining company.
Contemporary stakeholder drivers and interactions tend to challenge and destabilise the centrality of the mining company in establishing a convincing SLO.