This insights post is a summary of the blog post published by Phillips Group. View the full article at: Four key metrics of social licence.
Social license is a concept that originated in the mining sector and has migrated to infrastructure development. The two industries share similarities: large, impactful projects with significant economic benefits but also significant community costs. Understanding whether a project has achieved social license requires measurement rather than assumption, according to Phillips Group, Worldcom’s Australian partner.
The Critical Role of Social License
Infrastructure Partnerships Australia’s report Building Trust: Social Licence for Infrastructure emphasizes that social license is critical when planning and delivering infrastructure. Community opposition does result in project delays and cancellations. It is now incumbent on governments and proponents to deliver infrastructure that provides clear community benefit while seeking to minimize negative social impacts.
The outward manifestation of lacking social license—community protests—can represent either a small hardcore group of protagonists or wider community sentiment. The only way to understand social license is to measure it. While the Infrastructure Partnerships Australia report discusses the need to measure social license, it does not provide recommendations on methodology.
Measuring Social Licence Through Research
Statistically valid research provides the insight needed to understand whether issues and themes uncovered through community and stakeholder engagement are reflected throughout the community. Several models exist for measuring social license. Phillips Group has adapted and tested the Boutilier model, which measures four key metrics.
Four Key Metrics for Social License
- Economic legitimacy: captures the tangible financial value communities expect from major infrastructure investments.
- Socio-political legitimacy: reflects community expectations for projects that enhance daily living beyond economic impacts.
- Institutional trust: assesses whether the community trusts the government and proponent to deliver the project in a way that is respectful to the community.
- Interactional trust: evaluates whether the community has had positive or negative experiences engaging with the project. Direct engagement quality significantly influences overall perceptions of project legitimacy.
Scoring and Application
Analyzing the results of these metrics produces a social license score out of five. The higher the score, the closer the project is to achieving advocacy and endorsement from the community and key stakeholders.
Ideally, social licence should first be measured during the business case phase to establish a baseline. Research should then be repeated periodically through design and construction, depending on project magnitude and delivery timeframe.
The Importance of Continual Measurement
Continual measurement is important because project teams too often make assumptions about what matters to a community and do not update these assumptions as the project progresses.
Construction is when an infrastructure project becomes real and is often the time when community outrage can reach its peak. A project without a strong social licence, developed through genuine and authentic engagement during business case and planning phases, will struggle to gain that social licence once construction starts.
Strategic Implications for Infrastructure Delivery
The challenge for governments and proponents is moving beyond aspirational statements about community benefit to demonstrable evidence of social licence. Measurement provides the data needed to understand community sentiment, adjust engagement strategies, and identify areas requiring additional attention before opposition crystallizes.
Social licence is not static. Community sentiment shifts based on project progression, communication quality, and whether promises made during planning phases are honored during delivery. Regular measurement enables proactive response to emerging concerns before they escalate into organized opposition.
For infrastructure projects facing long delivery timelines, establishing social licence early and maintaining it through transparent, data-informed engagement represents essential risk management. The cost of measurement is minimal compared to the financial and reputational costs of project delays or cancellations resulting from community opposition.
Read the full article at Four key metrics of social licence.
