Using social contract to inform social licence to operate: an application in the Australian coal seam gas industry

The emerging coal seam gas (CSG) industry has been commercially active in Australia since the mid 1990s. More recently however, the development of the CSG industry has escalated rapidly with its trajectory predicted to grow into the future as gas supplies become a major and important fuel source in the transition to a lower carbon future. However, the industry has been the subject of significant social opposition. Coordinated citizen action groups taking direct action against CSG operations have delayed and even stopped CSG projects progressing. In response, the industry has recognised the importance of establishing its social licence to operate. While conflicts around CSG development tend to incorporate a combination of environmental, social, economic and technological concerns, the ethical aspects of these disagreements are rarely made explicit or explored in any depth. However, some of these more implicit ethical assumptions have begun to be formalised in the concept of social licence. The idea that a social licence represents a social contract between companies and communities is instructive. Because social contract theory describes the nature and purpose of agreement-making among members of an organised society, there are clear implications for understanding the social sustainability of those arrangements. This paper explores how consent-based and justice-based forms of social contract provide an ethical framework for the way CSG companies and communities interact.