Mining Industry Perspectives on Handling Community Grievances

A significant body of literature exists about the effects and impacts of mining on local communities. 1 Less well understood are the internal dynamics and decision pathways within companies for handling grievances and disputes. As a first step towards addressing this knowledge gap, the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM) and the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative (CSRI) agreed to collaborate on an exploratory research project. The primary aim was to build knowledge about the way mining companies function internally to handle community grievances and community-company disputes. The research covered a full range of disputes from day-to-day problems through to those that become high-profile legal cases and/or feature in media campaigns.