Webinar: Ethics & Social Licence in the Blue Economy

Social license to operate in itself can have different meanings to different people and can be used in ways that are ethically constructive or ethically problematic.

Presentation 1: Ethics and integrity in the Blue Economy
Presented by: Professor Charles Sampford, IEGL Director: Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University

This presentation will discuss the nature of ethics and integrity for individuals, institutions, profit-seeking enterprises, and overall systems, emphasizing the importance of ‘integrity systems’. An integrity system is the sum total of all elements in a system, including laws, incentives, standards, institutions and ethical norms. These elements, and their relations and interactions, shape behaviour and deliver outcomes. The system has integrity if it delivers on its promise: on the values that justify it. A Blue Economy integrity system is therefore made up of the ethical norms, laws, organisations, and market forces in the marine industry space that determine whether the system will live up to the high ideals it seeks to achieve.

Presentation 2: Social licence in the Blue Economy
Presented by: Dr Hugh Breakey, Senior Research Fellow: Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University

The social license to operate (SLO) is an ambiguous term and a challenging feature of many contemporary industries, including Blue Economy industries. This presentation will discuss different ways of understanding the SLO, through definitions, analogies, and its absence. It will explore how the SLO can work (or fail to work) in different cases as an ethical tool, activist weapon, corporate shield, or empty buzzword. It will describe four different strategies that give rise to different types of SLO (Genuine SLO; Strategic SLO, Tick-box SLO; and Default SLO), each with different risk profiles.