National level paths to the mining industry’s Social Licence to Operate (SLO) in Northern Europe: The case of Finland

Abstract

Research on the social licence to operate (SLO) has traditionally focused on local communities directly affected by mining operations. There has been a lack of systematic research exploring attitudes to mining among the public at large. Based on a national survey (N = 1091) of Finns’ attitudes towards mining conducted in 2016, we test a theoretical model using path analysis to examine the factors affecting the social licence to operate (SLO) of mining in Finland. The aim is to shed light on the factors affecting SLO at national level in Finland and to add to the growing body of research seeking to understand the mining industry’s SLO at national level in diverse social, economic and political settings. The results show that among the Finnish public the factors having the greatest influence on the mining SLO (directly or indirectly) are balance of benefits over impacts, governance capacity, procedural fairness, distributive fairness, resource nationalism and trust in the mining industry. Our findings support the crucial role of trust for SLO, but additionally highlight the importance of balance over benefits. The results suggest that building trust and SLO requires more than just the actions of either the industry or governments alone – a social licence requires joint efforts.