Responsible Risk-Taking, or How Might CSR Be Responsive to the Nature of Contemporary Risks? Reflections on Sub-seabed Carbon Dioxide Storage in Scotland and Marine Radioactive Contamination in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan

Abstract

This chapter assesses the role of risk governance and risk communication in CSR, with particular reference to how an operator’s attention to the social dimensions of risk may affect its ability (or otherwise) to be granted a social licence to operate (SLO). This issue is explored through the lens of potential effects of energy infrastructure on the environment, with particular reference to sub-seabed carbon dioxide storage (as part of larger carbon dioxide capture and storage processes) and marine radioactive contamination following the Fukushima nuclear accident. I argue that due to the hugely value-laden nature of risk perception associated with energy and environmental change, honesty about uncertainties and remediation/contingency plans, sincerity in motivations for taking risks, and respect for public and stakeholder understandings of risk must all be considered as part of an operator’s risk management strategy. In terms of implications for thinking about CSR and SLOs, I conclude that the case studies presented reinforce extant thinking on the role of communities’ values in the granting of an SLO and the need for developers to on occasion go beyond their legal requirements for risk management if they are to receive an SLO. However, I also suggest that the potentially far-reaching impacts of energy technologies raise challenges for the traditional focus in SLO thinking on ‘local’ community effects, and for the assumption that the end goal should always be for a project to proceed in a particular location.