Madencilikte Sosyal Onay Kavramının Örnekler Üzerinden Değerlendirilmesi

Abstract

Nowadays, companies operating in many different sectors are often focused on their environmental and social obligations, as well as their legal obligations. The need for social license to operate has become more important issue than ever for companies and their activities, to reduce the negative impacts on communities and the environment, to ensure the participation of residents, local authorities and other stakeholders affected by the project. In literature, there have been many academic studies on the concept of social license to operate. Majority of these studies developed through industry feedback, and the concept of social license to operate is generally defined as the consent and the continuity of the acceptance that could affect the profitability of the project by the local community members and the other stakeholders. In parallel with the environmental and social problems experienced in the mining sector with the increase of sanctions and pressures on the mining companies, it has become necessary to consider the social license to operate in mining in recent years. Today, legal permits are not enough alone for the projects in order to be able to realize as planned. For sustainable mining activities, projects must obtain a social license to operate and shall retain this acceptance. In order to gain a social license to operate, it is necessary that stakeholder engagement shall be clear, sensitive and with early participation of stakeholders to avoid concerns about the effects of the project and to protect mutual interests. The continuity of social license to operate is fully dependent on to maintain existing implementations and plan every stage of the project. In the absence of social license to operate, delays in the authorization process, projects which stay behind by planned schedule, stop or cancel and additional costs incurred in these situations, damage to the company's reputation and this situation affecting the company's future projects cause direct or indirect serious damage to the companies. In this study, the importance of social license to operate in mining has been demonstrated in the manner of sustainable mining, and for this purpose, with the selected case studies, mining projects from the world and from Turkey are presented and positive/negative situations in social license to operate upon these projects were conveyed. In addition to legal regulations, academic studies and good site implementations in the context of sustainable mining, the engineering education in the country needs also to be developed in this direction, in order to take further action for the mining industry.