Principal speaker
Robert Boutilier
Every source of energy has its critics. Even solar advocates admit that it’s still too expensive. Many energy projects face protests that slow or stop them. The ‘social licence to operate’ (SLO) is apparently making the West’s slow economic growth even worse by granting a veto against development to everyone who can organize a protest rally. However, there’s another side to the SLO that draws on one of the West’s most enduring strengths inherited from the European Enlightenment. The West has an authority-challenging style of governance that institutionalizes social change, resistance to corruption, and an adaptable social contract. Dr. Boutilier describes how the original meaning of the SLO in the mining industry evolved into a framework for site-specific social contracts, the engagement of rural residents, and the development of the civic skills and social capital that revive the West’s traditional competitive advantage.
Dr. Robert Boutilier is a researcher, author, and president of Boutilier & Associates, a social research consultancy. He is also an associate of the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University and of the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility. Specializing in resource development and infrastructure projects, Robert has conducted stakeholder mapping research and workshops on stakeholder relations for managers around the world. His latest book, A Stakeholder Approach to Issues Management, presents a system for integrating measures of the social license to operate with data on network structures and issues analyses.