Social License to Operate and the Blue Economy
AUTHORS: Dr Michelle Voyer, Dr Judith van Leeuwen ABSTRACT (Excerpt): The Blue Economy is an ocean based economic growth model gaining traction around the world. The way in which the Blue Economy is conceived and understood differs significantly across different sets of actors. A particular area of contestation exists around which ocean based industries or sectors can be considered to be‘Blue’. This highlights the possibility of the Blue Economy becoming a forum through which the legitimacy of different private uses of ocean resources is contested and debated. The question of legitimacy of Blue Economy activities and sectors is explored through a critical engagement with the notion of a‘social license to operate’(SLO). Whilst SLO is normally considered in the context of individual businesses or developments, in this article we explore the applicability of SLO at across-sectoral scale. In doing so we examine how the concept of SLO may inform debates over appropriate private use of public ocean resources, and how this mightinfluence the legitimacy of the broader concept of a Blue Economy. Published in Elsevier, Resources Policy, Volume 62, August 2019, Pages 102-113. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Social License to Operate and the Blue Economy.pdf
