Social Conflict Resolution in the Extractive Industry: Case studies of Licenses to Operate

The extractive industry is crucial in this energy transformation age, where the world is concerned about emissions reduction and more sustainable businesses. The extractive industry has two objectives: meeting the rising demand and extracting natural resources in a sustainable way. However, the industry usually deals with community rejection and social conflicts wherever they are, and this dire situation is a barrier for new extractive projects worldwide. Understanding why social conflicts are generated and transformed into shared-value projects is crucial to designing extractive projects that consider the community's concerns and integrate these issues into the final project. In addition, getting and keeping the social license to operate (SLO) is important in the extractive industry, so companies must monitor the SLO during the operation's life cycle to prevent social conflict. That is why it is important to have a way to measure the SLO. This book presents a framework that allows companies to analyze social conflicts and propose better projects to obtain the social license to operate. It also presents a methodology for calculating the SLO that shows how the company-community relationship is going.

Cesar Saenz is a university professor and researcher on the business-community relationship to create shared value and gain the social license to operate. For more than a decade he has been researching and systematizing best practices so companies can improve their relationships with the surrounding communities.