A Waka-Taurua social licence to operate framework

While not a blueprint for developing social licence to operate (SLO), the Waka-Taurua framework does serve as a guide to what information needs to be considered in building and maintaining SLO. It provides a holistic conceptualisation of the components, processes, and connections required in developing SLO and distils this down to the essence of the problem, as itemised below.

• That the terms of a social licence are located in the values, expectations and perceptions of communities of interest (conceptualised as individual waka).
• That SLO emerges as an issue when there are gaps between people’s values, perceptions, expectations and that of industries values, procedures, and processes (conceptualised as how well the purpose of your waka aligns with the purpose of the other).
• That addressing the SLO issue requires that gap to be bridged in a collaborative way (conceptualised as a space for consented, purposeful engagement between the two waka to achieve a common purpose).