Pillars for Building Community Awareness and Trust for Successful Mine Closure and Transformation

Determination of post-mining land use requires strategic planning and implementation of rehabilitation and repurposing activities to ensure that the impacts of mining are sustainably transformed for future use.

Rehabilitated landscapes can create natural capital, a balanced and beneficial use of the land that contributes to long-term environmental health and socio-economic development, thereby turning former liabilities into valuable assets for communities, such as recreational areas, wildlife habitats, agricultural lands and renewable energy projects (e.g. pumped hydro, wind and solar).

By equipping you with real-world insights and lessons learnt, we aim to empower stakeholders involved in the consideration of mine closure and transformation, to better understand and effectively manage social risk, foster community acceptance and drive positive outcomes for all.

Key challenges

Several challenges impede productive engagement in mine closure and transformation:

Policy

The machinery of government turns slowly and, globally, there is broad discrepancy in policy thresholds and guidance for good engagement practice. Requirements and policies vary across levels of government and between states and territories.

Structural

Project commitments are subject to regulatory and business decision-making which may change over the course of the project. The rise of cumulative impacts and fatigue associated with the sequential closure of assets in regions more vulnerable to certain commodity’s structural decline. Non-public land uses are often profit-driven and the risk profile is required to reflect this.

Social

Community uncertainty, mistrust and/or low levels of awareness can hinder the take-up of new technology and alternative land uses to those that may have been conceived in the past.

Growing community awareness and advocacy as a result of new platforms for community opposition. Cost of living is a central concern and government incentives and concessions to operators may be perceived as costly and met with opposition.

The Unexpected

Global events can interrupt and shift momentum, lead to resource constraints, or even halt projects as policy priorities shift or industrial frameworks adapt to new environments, including global financial crises, pandemics. extreme climate events, as well as political and industrial actions.

Resistance to Change

Engagement is a process of change management.

Resistance to change remains a key barrier to effectively embedding projects within the community and enabling productive and collaborative relationships with community stakeholders:

• Rational Objections - These stem from a lack of information or disagreement with data. Clear, simple, and timely information is essential to overcome this resistance.
• Emotional Resistance - Based on fear of loss, this resistance is deep-seated and can hinder communication and decision-making. A risk-informed approach focusing on building genuine relationships is crucial.
• Resistance to Process or Organisation - Mistrust or past negative experiences can lead to resistance, even if the change is understood. Addressing this requires transparency and sufficient time for community response.

Pillars of social performance success

Managing resistance and fostering social licence and performance relies on four key pillars:

Understanding Social Risk

• Social risk is specific to populations and influenced by socio-economic factors and social values.
• A risk-informed approach involves establishing a baseline understanding of community sentiment and social risk factors at the project’s outset.
• Tailored messaging and proactive risk mitigation help alleviate resistance.

Education

• Projects should embed education and knowledge sharing to help communities navigate the complexities of mine closure and transformation.
• Education empowers communities to become active participants in the transformation journey.
• Considerations include varying levels of energy literacy and the dual potential of information to empower or disempower.

Transparency and Accountability

• Establishing a baseline acceptance of the project’s fundamental drivers is key.
• Transparency involves clear communication of regulatory pathways, managing expectations, openly sharing information and discussing potential impacts collaboratively.
• Demonstrating how community feedback is integrated into the project builds trust.

Trust

• Trust underpins all other pillars of social success.
• Relationships – and trust - are cultivated through consistently demonstrating a genuine desire to minimise adverse social consequences and enhance social outcomes (social risk), knowledge sharing (education) and process transparency and closing the loop (transparency and accountability).

SLR’s role in social performance

SLR’s engagement practice employs a social research approach. We draw on the principles of Social Impact Assessment to conduct social risk and community sentiment analysis at the outset of our engagement planning. This process informs an engagement approach that meets regulatory requirements and expectations and is designed to suit the maturity of proponents and their communities.

SLR’s Social Performance Team are supported by a diverse range of engineers and environmental specialists with significant experience in the physical challenges of mine closure and transformation, including strategy and risk, financial planning and permitting, facility design and construction management, water resources management including treatment and post-closure operation and monitoring.

Reach out to our team for further information, or to discuss how we can help you with your mine closure and transformation objectives.