Governance via persuasion: environmental NGOs and the social licence to operate

ABSTRACT

The ‘social licence to operate’ (SLO) concept is increasingly associated with environmental activism in nations with prominent resource extractive industries. Environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) deploy it as a campaigning strategy to contest corporate activity, in particular, the environmental sustainability of existing or planned commercial projects. Drawing on two prominent Australian ENGO campaigns – against Seafish Tasmania’s Abel Tasman vessel and Tassal’s proposed fish farm operations on Tasmania’s east coast – the SLO strategy is assessed in the context of the governance literature, arguing that it constitutes ‘governance via persuasion’, a mode that incorporates appeals to normative values. Australian SLO campaigns are primarily directed at the state, promoting opportunities for ENGOs to shape reviews and revisions to environmental regulation alongside governmental and corporate actors. SLO campaigns are therefore a contemporary expression of environmental strategies seeking regulatory change in contrast to ENGO-led private governance initiatives that often bypass the state.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental NGOs
• social licence
• environmental campaigns
• environmental governance
• Australian politics
• public administration

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the constructive advice of the journal’s reviewers. I also thank Richard Eccleston and Joanna Vince for their valuable guidance and the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of Tasmania, in particular, members of the ‘Governance, activism and social licence’ project from which this work developed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Video of advertisement is available at https://vimeo.com/196921707, accessed 15 February 2017.