Mining the social dimensions

The social dimensions of the minerals industry – how it deals with people, values, development, policy, regulation and a range of associated issues – are becoming increasingly critical to business success. Company public reports and conference papers suggest that companies’ engagement with critical social issues has increased over the past five years.

Report co-author Dr Fiona Solomon says, “Despite this, ‘the social’ remains the least understood aspect of the concept of sustainable development’s ‘triple bottom line’ of economy, environment and society.

“The complex, interrelated nature of social issues in the minerals industry is widely acknowledged and this makes our research a timely contribution to understanding and navigating these issues.”

CSIRO’s report, Social dimensions of mining in Australia – understanding the minerals industry as a social landscape, provides an overview of recent literature, explores current research and industry perspectives, and identifies research gaps.

In a wide-ranging literature review, Dr Solomon’s team focused on the key issues and trends of the past five years, spring-boarding from the 2002 Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development report, Breaking New Ground. This report – generally considered as marking a pivotal time of change within the industry – served as the starting point for assessing change in conceptualisations of social dimensions.

The literature review identified a broad range of categories of interest including governance and regulation, Indigenous and developer perspectives, community engagement and development, labour relations, and interpretations of sustainable development and social licence to operate.

Dr Solomon’s team experimented with mapping tools to produce visualisations of the literature and how it has changed, generating concept maps – or ‘social landscapes’ – of relationships between, and relative emphasis on, particular issues.

“Landscapes have been chosen as the visual form for the maps, because the spatial representation implies connections with an aerial view of mines and Australian landscapes,” explains Dr Solomon. “They can also be understood as malleable and temporal as, particularly in the context of mining, they are in the process of being shaped and reshaped.”

Workshops the team held with social researchers and industry specialists confirmed the diversity of perspectives that exist on the social dimensions of mining and noted an under-investment in social research within the industry. Other strong themes included gender, workplace cultures, working arrangements and the changing role of government.

“Our research highlights the need for enhanced integration within the social dimensions across thematic areas, and between social and other aspects of the sector, such as environment and business planning,” says Dr Solomon. “This is particularly important in the light of the current resources boom.”

The full report is available at http://www.csiro.au/resources/MiningSocialDimensions.html.