Social License to Operate for mining companies in the Russian Arctic as a tool for development of host territories

Abstract

In many countries, resource extraction companies increasingly admit the need to deserve the trust of local communities that host their activities. This paper discusses the concept of the Social License to Operate (SLO) that contributes to understanding trustful (or mistrustful) relationships between companies and communities. Based on case studies from the Russian Arctic, the paper aims to discuss the SLO concept from the viewpoint of its usefulness for promoting development of Arctic territories hosting extraction activities, specifically mining. The paper provides knowledge on the SLO concept and its analytical framework, and compares two cases in the Murmansk region with the aim to understand dynamics of a social license in a particular local context, as well as a relationship between the level of SLO and a mining company’s input in community development. The paper concludes that the better companies perform as promoters of local development, the higher levels of the SLO they get from the communities. The case studies also demonstrate that in a given local context most important factors for the level of SLO are working places provided by the companies within the communities and presence of emotional attachment of the companies’ top managers to the towns and treating them as home places.