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The Samarco dam disaster: A grave challenge to social license to operate discourse

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  • Demajorovic, Jacques
  • Lopes, Juliana Campos
  • Santiago, Ana Lucia Frezzatti

Abstract

The Social License to Operate (SLO) is becoming increasingly prominent in the discourse of the mining sector as a central element of corporate responsibility strategy in order to minimize the risks to business. Its central idea that the community can give or withhold support for a project demands a critical eye, as the legitimacy of mining activities is not always achieved by the surrounding community's effective evaluation of the benefits and risks of these ventures. The purpose of this article is to discuss SLO within a context of vulnerability, through a case study on the Brazilian Samarco dam breach, one of the biggest socio-environmental tragedies in the mining sector. The methodological procedures include documentary analysis of media articles and company sustainability reports published before the dam breach, and interviews with multiple local stakeholders. Content analysis was used to understand any relationship between the factors that foster SLO as identified in literature and the Samarco case. The results raise questions or doubts whether in contexts such as this, SLO may serve the interests of companies more than those of the community, in so far as their socio-environmental and compensatory programs weakening the critical capacity of local groups, and contributing to the politics of resignation rather than to a process of legitimization. SLO, as sought by the company, may have contributed to its downfall by covering up risks that threatened the perpetuity of the business. Furthermore, the excessive economic dependence between Samarco and its neighboring regions generated a new phenomenon in the form of blaming the victims, those worst affected by the tragedy.

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  • Demajorovic, Jacques & Lopes, Juliana Campos & Santiago, Ana Lucia Frezzatti, 2019. "The Samarco dam disaster: A grave challenge to social license to operate discourse," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 273-282.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:61:y:2019:i:c:p:273-282
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2019.01.017
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    7. Alberto Diantini & Salvatore Eugenio Pappalardo & Tim Edwards Powers & Daniele Codato & Giuseppe Della Fera & Marco Heredia-R & Francesco Facchinelli & Edoardo Crescini & Massimo De Marchi, 2020. "Is this a Real Choice? Critical Exploration of the Social License to Operate in the Oil Extraction Context of the Ecuadorian Amazon," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-24, October.
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