The topic of social licence has transformed over recent years from a metaphor for good community relations in the mining industry to a term widely used in many industries. It is a term used regularly by our prime minister to talk about expectations of banks and gas companies, in particular.
The phrase ‘social licence to operate’ was coined in 1997 by a mining industry sustainable development executive called Jim Cooney, in discussions with the World Bank. He used the term as a metaphor to bring attention to the difference between a legal permit to mine and the social acceptance of a project.
