Operating beyond social compliance

Richard's unusual career has included challenging business as an anti-corporate campaigner; working in business as a global public affairs manager; and helping business as a consultant on social licence and human rights. He uses these very different perspectives to help us better understand the dynamics at play in our industry's relationship with society. It's a relationship that has had its ups and downs which has led at times to our social licence being questioned. Richard's talk reaches back to the 1990s and how the concept of social licence emerged out of an increasingly fraught relationship between the mining sector and global society. He pauses at key moments since then to illustrate both the value and the weaknesses in the social licence concept in helping us understand increasingly complex social and stakeholder operating contexts. Finally, he reflects on recent social licence developments here in Australia that have seen the Prime Minister, other governments and regulators explicitly use the term social licence to call out certain sectors and the state of their relationship with society - the two most recent being insurance and banking. Expect Richard to be proactive as he draws on his checkered past to help us think differently about our future.