Preliminary Assessment of Social License to Operate (SLO) and Corporate Communication in Four European Lithium Projects

Lithium, that is now exclusively produced outside the European Union (EU), is needed urgently for the green energy transition. The EU has promising lithium projects; however, the social license to operate (SLO) is important for their long-term viability. In this paper, four lithium projects are prel...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Toni Eerola, Konstantinos Komnitsas
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-11-01
Series:Materials Proceedings
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4605/15/1/35
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Lithium, that is now exclusively produced outside the European Union (EU), is needed urgently for the green energy transition. The EU has promising lithium projects; however, the social license to operate (SLO) is important for their long-term viability. In this paper, four lithium projects are preliminary assessed using data from the literature and media regarding their SLO. The projects that aim for hard rock lithium production are (i) the Rapasaari project owned by Sibanye-Stillwater Keliber Oy in Kaustinen, western Finland, (ii) the Mina do Barroso project, owned by Savannah Resources, in northern Portugal, (iii) the St. Austell project, owned by Cornish Lithium plc, in Cornwall, UK, and (iv) the Emili project, owned by Imerys, in Beauvoir (Allier) in western France. The respective corporate websites were searched, regarding their languages while the companies’ SLO approaches and strategies were also analyzed.
ISSN:2673-4605