Social License: What It Is and How to Get It
“Social License.”
It’s a term that’s been thrown around a lot over the past several years. In New Brunswick, it’s one of the factors that will be used by the province’s fracking commission to determine if the government will proceed with the controversial technique to extract natural gas.
[mks_pullquote align=”left” width=”200″ size=”15″ bg_color=”#848484″ txt_color=”#ffffff”]Want to learn about social license and New Brunswick’s fracking commission? Check out this blog post by commissioner John McLaughlin.[/mks_pullquote]Yet a lot of people are still unsure what the term actually means. Some people think the idea of social license comes straight from a bunch of hippies, but its creators were anything but.
Social license is a term that was was actually coined decades ago by Canadian mining executives. It refers to the way corporations must work with local communities to ensure that those who bear the greatest risk around a resource development project will understand and be the recipient of the project’s benefits.
“At some level, it’s common sense. It’s ‘You know what? You’re going to be a good corporate neighbour,'” said Lisa Hrabluk, founder of Wicked Ideas, a New Brunswick company that helps facilitate discussion around difficult public policy issues.
But in the last few years the term social license is no longer just used in boardrooms by top-level executives. Thanks to the Internet, it’s now used by the public, grassroots organizations and the media to discuss resource development projects.
“The term social license was created by the mining industry, so the grassroots organizations have now adopted the word itself and made it their own – it’s just a by-product of the times that we live in,” Hrabluk says.
“Protest groups and people who are opposed to resource development projects have kind of expanded the definition of that word and have placed a greater emphasis on the public’s role in granting social license.”
Still, no matter where you put the emphasis, the core definition is still the same.
“Social License is the process in which corporations try to gain and maintain the public’s trust around a public acceptance of resource projects,” Hrabluk says.
With the definition varying depending on who you’re talking to, how do you even know if social license is achieved? Hrabluk says it comes down to local leadership.
“That will depend on different communities. I think that the people who should really be the ones to determine if social license has been determined or not is your local political leadership. These really are local issues,” she says.
“That’s the important message for citizens. Is that you need to create the space so the citizens who don’t feel strongly one way or the other feel like they can participate in that conversation. It’s government that should create that space.”
Alright, so you create the space and dialogue is happening. How do you know if it’s ok to proceed? Are there any signs that social license has been achieved?
“I think in some respects social license is the absence of, rather than the presence of something,” Hrabluk says. “It’s the absence of large-scale protest. It’s absence of opposition that has the potential to stop things.”
Hrabluk uses the Irving Oil Refinery as an example of a project with social license. People may complain about it, or even file formal complaints, but generally speaking, Saint John residents accept the refinery and understand the benefits of its presence, both direct and indirect.
Like most things, it’s an ongoing process. There isn’t going to be a moment where someone says “social license has been declared!”
Hrabluk says social license is something that needs to be maintained.
“It’s about informed public consent and the public feeling that it understands what’s going on,” she says. “It also means that there are regular information updates and people are able to understand what’s going on and there’s transparency to the process.”
[mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”200″ size=”15″ bg_color=”#848484″ txt_color=”#ffffff”]Still confused on what social license is? You can sign up for this webinar and learn more about it. [/mks_pullquote]
The Internet has citizens and grassroots organizations wielding much more power than they did decades ago. They now have a power to influence policy that can no longer be brushed off or ignored. Hrabluk says government and all industries are increasingly going to be having to deal with working alongside citizens.
“Public affairs now happens in public. This is where the conversations have moved. Out of the wood panel rooms where lobbyists would meet with high-ranking officials, and into the town squares and people’s kitchen tables,” she says.
“You can either fight it, or go with the current and work within it.”