Translating the concept of ‘social license to operate’ into a performance monitoring tool for Vedanta Group
Student name: Ms Vineeta Yadav
Guide: Dr Suresh Jain
Year of completion: 2018
Host Organisation: Vedanta Limited, Gurugram
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Mr Gaurav Sarup
Abstract: ‘Social License to Operate’, is a term widely picked by the mining industry to indicate authenticity of its performance on aspects involving local stakeholders and particularly host communities. The project is a novel attempt to translate the term ‘social license to operate’ into a tool for monitoring social performance of ‘Vedanta Group (denotation for business units of Vedanta Resources PLC, a diversified mining and metals company. A combination of secondary and primary research methods were used for this purpose. The secondary study focused on a literature study of the term ‘social license to operate’, leading to identification of elements, which were then aligned to match Vedanta’s business context through focused discussions with the HSE team of Vedanta Group. The management understanding on the elements was supported by a secondary analysis of four peer companies and Vedanta. The project would be useful for management professionals with interest in extractive industry and its social license.
Keywords: social license to operate, communities, social responsibility
