5. What is good practice in community relations?
Practice that helps to build and
maintain the social licence to
operate of mining projects
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6. The concept of the ‘social licence’
• A mining project has a social licence if it has the broad
acceptance and support of local communities and other key
stakeholders in the society.
• The social licence can be as valuable as the formal
licence granted by governments.
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7. A Case Study: Newmont’s Conga project in Peru
August 2012
Newmont
CEO admits
July 2012 project is
‘effectively
June 2012 3 protesters dead’
Permission shot dead;
Nov, 2011
to resume, State of
Licence with new emergency
suspended conditions
2011
Community
protests &
2010: blockade
Environmental
New
licence granted Government
elected
8. Why the social licence is important i
The costs of poor relations
• Increased difficulty in getting project approvals
• Potential delays and disruption
• Employees placed at risk
• Reputational damage
– difficulty in obtaining future access to land and resources
– withdrawal of investor support
– international criticism
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9. Why the social licence is important ii
The benefits of good relations
• reduced transaction costs due to greater
cooperation and trust
• goodwill – a buffer for when things go wrong
• more motivated employees
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10. Building blocks for securing a social licence
Commitment
Systems Social licence Skills
Knowledge
11. Community relations vs. public relations
Public Relations Community Relations
• One-way • Two-way
• Messaging • Understanding
• Telling • Listening
• Persuading • Responding
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12. The three elements of engagement
Source: Zandvliet and Anderson, Getting it Right
1 12
13. Some good practice guidelines
• Be inclusive – don’t play favourites
• Be open and transparent – an informed community is a much
stronger ally than an uninformed one
• Respond promptly to concerns and issues raised by the
community
• Follow through on commitments
• Seek out opportunities to give community members a sense of
ownership and control over initiatives
• Ensure that project benefits & opportunities are broadly
distributed
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14. The importance of integration
Everyone in the project should be reading from the
same page
