Reflections on the 20th anniversary of the term ‘social licence’

The need for a ‘social licence’ is now frequently asserted by opponents of mineral resource development as an inviolable principle, which many people might think has its roots within civil society. In fact, the concept originated within the mining industry in the late 1990s, as companies came to better understand their challenges in managing the political and social risks around their projects. Jim Cooney describes when and why he introduced the concept of ‘social licence’ into the discourse around mining and communities at a World Bank conference in March 1997.