The term 'social licence to operate' has become well entrenched in the mining industry's lexicon since the turn of this century. While there are various definitions of social licence, it is broadly accepted that a mining operation has a social licence when it achieves ongoing acceptance or approval from the local community and other affected stakeholders, both of whom can affect its profitability (Lacey et al., 2012). Evidently the actions of a company either developing a new mining project or operating a mine site has a direct and tangible effect on its social licence. Social licence can be quickly eroded and, in some cases, can never be regained, which can at best make it difficult to complete a project or continue to operate a mine site and at worst halt the project or shutdown the site. On the other hand, practice that is considered acceptable by the affected stakeholders will in general help a mining company maintain or gain a social licence. Similar to social licence, there are numerous definitions of the circular economy. One commonly accepted definition is an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design and aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times as well as accelerating the transition from a conventional linear economy. The concept has gained significant acceptance through the European Commission's recent Circular Economy Package (European Commission, 2018) and a new British Standard for the circular economy BS 8001:2017“Framework for implementing the principles of the circular economy in organization” (BSI, 2018).Even though both concepts have emerged from different backgrounds - social licence naturally having a strong social perspective and the circular economy a strong environmental focus - the premise proposed in this extended abstract is that actions or initiatives encompassing the ideals of the circular economy should also strengthen a mining operation's social licence and contribute to improving the social licence of the sector.
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