The Social Licence to Operate: Activist Weapon, Industry Shield, Empty Buzzword, or Vital Ethical Tool?

The concept of the ‘social licence to operate’ (SLO) is contested on almost every imaginable dimension. Stakeholders may decry it as an industry-created ploy to ethics wash their operations and strategically manipulate community relations, while some industry figures despair over what they perceive as the arbitrary and even unilateral power that the weaponized concept of the social licence gifts to activists who seek to malign and disrupt law-abiding commercial operators. Others have lauded the social licence as a heaven-sent ethical tool, an effective lever for action that motivates leaders at profit-seeking enterprises to seriously consider ethical issues and prioritize community engagement. Still others will worry that a concept that can mean everything to everyone must ultimately mean nothing at all, and that the social licence is an empty and unhelpful buzzword. As the contributions to this Special Issue show, in different contexts – and sometimes even in the same context but for different stakeholders – all these views can be correct. From an ethical perspective, dangers, promises and irrelevance all attend the social licence.