The concept of a Social License to Operate (SLO) has been widely adopted within the mining industry and the sector is broadly comfortable using this terminology.
Evidence of its ubiquity is found in the survey of issues facing mining, Tracking the Trends, published annually by Deloitte which has included a section on Social License every year since 2010.For the mining industry, the SLO can be traced to a March 1997 meeting at the World Bank in Washington, DC.
Here, Jim Cooney, then Director of International and Public Affairs at Placer Dome, used the phrase to illustrate the need for companies to not only secure a legal license from governments but also the support of local communities who could grant or withhold an unwritten social license without which a project would face the risk of conflict resulting in delays or worse.
Two months later, the phrase and the rational behind it surfaced in conversations at a World Bank meeting on Mines and Communities held In Quito, Ecuador, where it resonated positively with participants from industry, civil society and communities. CITATION:Thomson, I, 2019. The social license to operate: adoption and application in the mining sector, 19972017, in Proceedings 9th International Conference on Sustainable Development in the Minerals Industry, pp 1011 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).