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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