Inside the Mind of Stakeholders: Conceptual Foundations of Social License to Operate

A recent Energy Policy study offers a conceptual framework to explain how individuals form judgments about a project’s social license to operate (SLO). Synthesizing decades of research, it identifies four key drivers: legitimacy, trust, reciprocity, and procedural fairness. The study reframes SLO as emerging from personal experiences—not just community consensus. Cultural norms, values, and past institutional interactions shape these views. This micro-level lens helps explain why similar communities may respond differently to the same project. For practitioners, the findings highlight the need to engage stakeholders as individuals with distinct histories and expectations.