CSR & MINING
Using technology and data to strengthen your social license to operate By Carolyn Burns
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n this digital age there are so many opportunities to use technology and data to improve stakeholder engagement. From video calls to social media platforms, mobile apps, group chats and data portals, it has never been easier to connect with a wide group of people. In 2021, 88% of Canadians used mobile internet. Globally, almost 66% of the population has a cellphone and 60% were active internet users. ere are five of the best ays yo can se technology and data to strengthen your social license to operate. 1 | Share more information with more people. Companies can use digital platforms to provide updates on mine site activity, summaries of meetings, as well as access to company reporting and grievance mechanisms. In many cases, it might also be appropriate to share pictures or videos of mine site visits or meetings with community members. At the corporate level, most companies now use data portals to share annual sustainability and ESG information. These portals are being expanded to include more timely data related to mining impacts, community concerns and the company’s social performance. We can also use video and virtual reality (VR) tools to share visual representations of mine plans or current mining activity. Videos are also an important way we can summarize complicated information or show the significance of incidents. The great thing about communications for local stakeholders is that they can be re-purposed for other stakeholder groups like investors and governments to highlight your approach to communication and engagement. 2 | Learn about the people you are engaging with. Social media also presents opportunities to gather more information about the people you are engaging with. Desk top research through LinkedIn, Facebook and community websites can give you a good sense of who you are working with, what their background is and how to connect on a more personal level. Regularly listening to local stakeholders on social media can provide useful information about the issues and opportunities that are important to them. 3 | Get feedback from a broader set of people. In-person discussions and events are extremely important and provide a certain type of information about community dynamics and interests that you cannot get from technology. But social media and technology can help balance out the power dynamics that play out at in-person events and allow MAY 2022
Listening to community comments and discussion on open social media platforms will give the company a sense of community concern about a broad range of activities including mining.
us to reach a much broader group of people. This is particularly true when it comes to connecting with women, kids or racialized people. It can provide opportunity for them to voice their opinion and be especially helpful if their opinion differs from community leadership. You can use the usual social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to build polls, or questionnaires for people to respond to. Work with community representatives to make sure that digital tools are appropriate for the group. In some regions, communities are super comfortable with What’sAp groups, or online polls and surveys. In other regions you might have to se specific apps that or on basic phones, ith limited internet, and use the right terminology and language. Ulula is a great example of an organization that works with companies and community groups to design and implement apps so that communities can provide feedback on impact assessments, grievance mechanisms and health and safety audits. 4 | Learn more about yourself. Social media and data can provide a company with great insight about their relationships with stakeholders and how effective their social performance is. As noted above, listening to community comments and discussion on open social media platforms will give the company a sense of community concern about a broad range of activities including mining. Some mining impacted communities in Canada have closed Facebook groups, but many also use Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to express their opinions. Using these tools, you can get a sense if you are sharing the right information, if it is resonating, and what are the general opinions or questions that community members have. Companies can also use their own data to determine if they are meeting commitments and expectations around social performance. Regular tracking and reporting on impacts like CONTINUED ON PAGE 8
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