mongolia 2012 day 1 brereton
TRANSCRIPT
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International Best Practice in Community Relations in Mining
Professor David Brereton
Deputy Director – Research Integration
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The Sustainable Minerals Institute: What we do
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What is good practice in community relations?
Practice that helps to build and maintain the social licence to operate of mining projects
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• A mining project has a social licence if it has the broad acceptance and support of local communities and other key stakeholders in the society.
• The social licence can be as valuable as the formal licence granted by governments.
The concept of the ‘social licence’
A Case Study: Newmont’s Conga project in Peru
2010: Environmental licence granted
2011 Community protests & blockade
Nov, 2011Licence suspended
June 2012Permission to resume, with new conditions
July 2012 3 protesters shot dead;State of emergency
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New Governmentelected
August 2012
Newmont CEO admits project is ‘effectively dead’
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The costs of poor relations
• Increased difficulty in getting project approvals
• Potential delays and disruption
• Employees placed at risk
• Reputational damage– difficulty in obtaining future access to land and resources– withdrawal of investor support– international criticism
Why the social licence is important i
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The benefits of good relations
• reduced transaction costs due to greater cooperation and trust
• goodwill – a buffer for when things go wrong
• more motivated employees
Why the social licence is important ii
Building blocks for securing a social licence
Social licence
Commitment
Skills
Knowledge
Systems
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Public Relations
• One-way
• Messaging
• Telling
• Persuading
Community Relations
• Two-way
• Understanding
• Listening
• Responding
Community relations vs. public relations
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The three elements of engagement
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Source: Zandvliet and Anderson, Getting it Right
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• Be inclusive – don’t play favourites
• Be open and transparent – an informed community is a much stronger ally than an uninformed one
• Respond promptly to concerns and issues raised by the community
• Follow through on commitments
• Seek out opportunities to give community members a sense of ownership and control over initiatives
• Ensure that project benefits & opportunities are broadly distributed
Some good practice guidelines
The importance of integration
Everyone in the project should be reading from the same page
Some useful resources
http://www.icmm.com/library/community-development-toolkit
http://www1.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/topics_ext_content/ifc_external_corporate_site/ifc+sustainability/publications/publications_handbook_stakeholderengagement__wci__1319577185063