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SOS Session Spotlight – Social License and the Blue Economy: Roles, Responsibilities and Opportunities for Innovation
The social and political acceptability of ocean industries, sometimes known as the “social license to operate”, plays a fundamental role in securing the future potential of ocean sectors and the broader Blue Economy. Yet many of the challenges in obtaining and maintaining a social license lie outside the control of individual businesses, or even sectors. Maintaining a social license for the Blue Economy therefore requires a collaborative, innovative and reflective approach, as well as partnerships between industry, governments and civil society.
The 2019 Sustainable Ocean Summit (SOS) (Paris, 20-22 November) will feature an interactive workshop on “Social License and the Blue Economy: Roles, Responsibilities and Opportunities for Innovation”, organized in partnership with the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS) University of Wollongong and Wageningen University:
• What are the roles and responsibilities of businesses, sectors, cross-sectoral organizations and governments in relation to social license in the Blue Economy?
• How can the ocean business community work together to address social license issues?
• Who should be investing in the development of innovative engagement practices between business, sectors, governments and communities (or stakeholders) to enhance the social license of the Blue Economy?
The workshop will build on a previous session conducted at the SOS 2017 that identified “who” are the key stakeholders, “what” issues need to be addressed to maintain social license, and “how” the issues are being addressed by various ocean economy sectors. The outcomes of the 2017 session have been collated in a new report available for access here.
The follow-up workshop at the SOS 2019 aims to delve further into these results by examining the responsibilities and cross-sectoral efforts required to address social license challenges, with a particular focus on four sectors: Resource extraction (deep seabed mining and oil & gas), Shipping, Aquaculture, Ocean Energy.
The outcomes of the workshop will be collated for inclusion in academic publications, and used for the development of collaborative and innovative approaches and recommendations on obtaining, monitoring and maintaining community trust and support for the Blue Economy and the responsible operations of its component industries.
The SOS 2019 workshop on “Social License and the Blue Economy: Roles, Responsibilities and Opportunities for Innovation” is currently seeking a Workshop Sponsor. Parties interested in sponsoring the session are invited to contact communications@oceancouncil.
