Establishing and Maintaining a Social Licence to Operate in Mining

Robert Boutilier PhD.

Robert G. Boutilier, Ph.D., is a researcher, author, and consultant. He is president of Boutilier & Associates, a social research consultancy based in Vancouver (www.stakeholder360.com), associate of the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University, and Executive Director of the Atzingo Institute for Stakeholder Network Studies. He is a member of the Academy of Management, the Canadian Business Ethics Research Network, and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, Petroleum, and the International Network for Social Network Analysis.

Robert's current work involves the application of concepts like social capital, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability to stakeholder relations, community development, and socio-political risk assessment. He has conducted workshops for managers in Austria, Australia, Bolivia, Canada, France, Mexico, Peru, Poland, and the United States. He is a regular conference speaker and has published scholarly articles on firm-stakeholder relations in trade magazines, the Journal of Business Ethics, and the Journal of Corporate Citizenship. He currently lives in Cuernavaca, México, where he wrote his latest book, Stakeholder Politics (Stanford University Press, U.S.A. and Greenleaf Publishing, U.K., 2009).

Ian Thomson PhD.

Ian Thomson has over 30 years of experience in the mining industry, working for the last decade to advance and refine the management of social issues in resource development projects. His area of expertise includes stakeholder engagement, capacity building, design and development of sustainable social relations and guiding multi-stakeholder processes. His years of experience in exploration and mine feasibility studies enable him to ground his assessment of social issues in an understanding of the technical aspect of mine finding and development.

Ian has led development of new standards and guidelines for best practice management of social issues during exploration and facilitated construction of the PDAC Principles and Guidance for Responsible Exploration. He is a founding member and principal of On Common Ground Consultants Inc, prior to that he held executive positions with Orvana Minerals Corp and Placer Development Ltd.