A Social Licence for Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage: How Engineers and Managers Describe Community Relations

Abstract

Although extensive research has been devoted to public perceptions and acceptance of controversial energy innovations, the perspectives of people developing and implementing such technologies are relatively under-examined. Other industries, such as mining, and social researchers have adopted the term “social licence to operate” (SLO) to conceptualise community–industry relationships. Despite its potential applicability to carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology, SLO has received very little attention in this context, specifically from an engineering and managerial perspective. The internationally contested nature of CCS highlights the importance of examining how engineers and managers discuss and understand the term SLO. Given the central role of engineers and managers in developing CCS technology and contributing to the creation of the contexts in which people relate to it, knowledge of how they understand their connection to communities impacted by the technology is a key area requiring development. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with engineers and managers from Australian CCS projects, this research considers their opinions of the relationship between CCS projects and the local or national community, and their understandings of the SLO concept. Results suggest that the emerging energy technology of CCS exposes some of SLO’s limitations for conceptualising and analysing the community–industry relationship.