The scarcest resource of all: acceptance

Doing business under public scrutiny in this day and age always involves pressure for self-justification. Anyone wishing to make changes must explain why the targeted state should be regarded as preferable to the existing one. What stands to be lost, and what gained, by changing things? Who would benefit from the change? Would it be good – or bad – for the public weal? What would be the balance of power with regard to competition between individual and collective interests?

Such questions are posed every day. They are most likely to be put forward in connection with infrastructure projects or the mining of raw materials. Whoever is aiming to build a new road, put in a new rail line, erect a new power line, sink a new well or open a new nonmetallic minerals mine can be sure to meet with immediate resistance.

1 Waning trust

Expect the authorities to be the first. The collective rules and regulations – everything from the convoluted diversity of nature conservation laws at all levels of governance to the planning tools and on to the instrument of class action – offer numerous ways to prevent or allow a given project (both resting on the same legal basis). Very few pertinent regulatory schemes actually provide clear-cut, objective benchmarks, hence leaving many points unclarified and granting ample scope for interpretation and closer scrutiny. The position taken by the authorities and the opinions held by their individual staff are crucial factors for the project. The competent authority can, in due compliance with all laws and regulations, either make itself part of the solution – or part of the problem.

In addition, resistance on the part of individual citizens is often quite substantial in terms of lawsuits or the formation of citizens’ action committees. But what might be good for everyone can be bad for any individual whose personal circumstances may be negatively impacted. Everyone would gladly attest to the social obligations of property ownership – as long as their own property is not at stake.

Add to that a waxing distrust of institutions, the deeds and needs of which are not fully understood. Like commercial enterprises and business associations, political bodies, too, get to feel the effects of this mistrust. All too frequently, people have had to hear and read about abuses of public office, financial and economic crises, environmental damage caused by greed, and corruption in general.

Isolated cases become medially enhanced and, hence, generalized. For the media, crises, catastrophes and people’s fears are particularly attractive for two reasons. First, they have an emotional component that holds the promise of good ratings and wide circulation. And second, they are of a serial nature, often ending with a winner and a loser and usually offering up incessant strife and struggle over long periods – to be reported in full detail, of course. In addition, social media like Facebook and Twitter stand as previously unheard-of campaigning instruments that immediately heap punishment on real or presumed misbehaviour.

All this has strongly eroded the function of trust as the social cement of our society. For investors, this carries pragmatic consequences. There are two things that each and every company – including in particular the resource-extracting and processing industries – has to know:

It does not suffice to focus on production alone while ignoring the social environment.

Companies, too, count as corporate citizens and are therefore obligated to accept and carry diverse forms of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

2 Gypsum mining, for example

The fact that nothing can be taken for granted longer is illustrated by the gypsum mining situation. Germany is 100 % self-sufficient in that area, with some 40 % stemming from natural gypsum and anhydrite mines and the other 60 % being recovered from flue-gas desulphurization systems. However, as one coal-fired power plant after another shuts down, that latter share will gradually drop. So, even if there is no increase in demand for gypsum, the supply of rock gypsum will have to be expanded.

Even though every household is full of products containing gypsum – everything from lightweight drywall panels to screed and even food additives – its extraction does not enjoy unanimous support. Again and again, resistance arises in the mining regions of Südharz and Bavaria. It is formulated by environmentalists as well as by local residents and political groups. Causes of nature conservation, landscape aesthetics and federal equity between the individual German states themselves and the federal level are all intertwined, some rightly so, and some not.

In each individual case, it is a laborious undertaking to build trust in the sincere, sustainable implementation of investment projects. It requires in-depth knowledge of the media and their mechanisms, but also and above all of the institutions and people with any kind of involvement in a given investment project. Who are they? What is their pertinent, personal attitude and perspective? Where do their interests lie? How much influence do they have on whom and what? Who do they know? What do their networks look like?

3 First step: stakeholder analysis

All these questions can be clarified by way of a stakeholder analysis in the form of graphs, mind maps, relationship charts or in matrix form, mandatorily accompanied by a comprehensive textual explanation. The latter must describe all details of importance for proper communication, hence necessitating considerable preparatory research consisting of talks/interviews, internet analyses and lectures. What makes a stakeholder analysis so valuable is its thoroughness and the solid, complete-as-possible findings it yields.

Such an analysis necessarily precedes a communication campaign, since the object is to satisfy each target group by picking up on their own, particular arguments, dealing with topics they consider important, and providing precise, pertinent information. Only after the issues addressed in the stakeholder analysis have been duly processed is it possible to elaborate any potential lines of agreement or compromise, perhaps even an overall strategy targeted on a reasonable objective.

Such processes involve a large number of participants: relevant staff, local residents, political leaders, public authorities, interested associations, companies inhabiting the local or competitive environment and, not least, the customers. They all have their own preferences, the violation of which invokes sensitive reactions. Or they need the information to help them better assess the project.

4 Information? Yes, but what kind?

All this information first has to be collected in all detail and totality. The communicator must always be available to respond to questions of detail and must be knowledgeable in all technical, political and legal matters of relevance. With regard to the mining of gypsum and anhydrite rock, for example, this is clearly the case, so the following key points have to be illuminated:

Main merits of domestic raw materials

a. Resource security

b. Value-chain origin

c. Technology development

d. Short transport routes (costs, CO₂)

e. Evolution of specific environmental standards

f. National self-responsibility, no “raw-material colonialism”

Macroeconomic rationale (underpinned by scientific studies) [1]

g. Jobs – direct and indirect, regional and national level

h. Value creation – regional and national level

i. Revenues (taxes and duties)

– For the facilities

– For the respective state

– For the federal budget and/or social spending

Ecological rationale

j. Healthy building material

– Gypsum – a “healthy” raw material with a broad range of applications

– Gypsum – a benign material for ecological construction

k. Sustainable demolition

– Recultivation follows extraction – just “repur­posing” nature

– Renaturalization beyond the legally prescribed

– Biotope formation in old stone quarries

Conservation of raw materials

l. Best-possible utilization of excavated rock

m. Optimized use of available FGD material

n. Maximum effort to improve recycling quotas

Clearly then, companies are placing their faith in the three P’s of sustainability: Profit, Planet and People.

The third “P”, the one standing for ”People” appears obvious: Like other companies, too, gypsum-industry enterprises in Südharz are actively sponsoring numerous cultural and social initiatives. Indeed, many social, cultural and athletic activities at the respective locations are only possible, because the company socializes part of its profits in this manner.

That, though, is not all that matters. In the opinion of American sustainability researcher Kellie McElhaney, “CSR is not about how you spend the money you make. It is about how you make the money you spend.” [2] What she means is that a company’s entire production process and all of its activities have to be shaken down for sustainability. The goal, of course, is to make money in a sustainable manner.

Gypsum mining can rightly claim to do just that. Exhausted workings are returned to nature undamaged. As a rule, “repurposed nature” generates valuable biotopes. That fact, together with the industry’s intensive recycling activities, equates to exemplary sustainable resource extraction based on holistic life-cycle considerations.

5 How to communicate?

This is always a matter of earning people’s trust over the long-term, because the companies want to be around – and their employees what to keep their jobs – for a long time. Dealing honestly with stakeholders is the name of the game. Consequently, it takes many different forms of communication to actually reach all the target groups. Discussion groups, meetings, conferences, films, brochures, websites, social media, personal letters and talks: Anything helps, as long as it captures the recipient’s attention.

Communication must also be forthright. Each and every citizen and group with a will to negotiate has the right to engage in honest, thorough, transparent dialogue. Respect for the other person’s opinion must be assured – and can just as well be expected in return. Problems concerning one’s own position need to be addressed. Anyone who tries to cut the debate short by concealing problems is bound to lose. No “greenwashing” allowed! Today’s arguments must also hold true tomorrow, and today’s information must remain valid tomorrow, too. People never know when they might meet again.

Why is honest, candid communication so important? It breeds acceptance at the local level, and only such acceptance makes it possible to do business successfully. Political decision-makers must be brought on board, and good colleagues are needed. All of them want to be able to trust the company that is sourcing the communication. An employee’s pride in “his/her” company spills over into his/her social environment, so satisfied employees make the best ambassadors for the company and its products. In addition, well-qualified personnel only want to join companies that have a good reputation as an employer, and the environmental-policy part of that reputation is a key criterion.

Customers, too, are very sensitive: a positive image is good for sales. It also helps bolster the company’s financial rating. Environmental scandals, though, lead to drastic share-price deterioration, as more than one big company has had to find out. Corporate social responsibility, then, is more than just a necessary prerequisite to achieving a company’s material objectives among stakeholders. It is also of paramount importance for shareholders, i.e., for the actual proprietors, if you will.

Companies that mine mineral resources in a sustainable, responsible manner need not keep it secret. “Do good and talk about it”, one might say, especially in times that Hans-Joachim Kümpel, former president of Germany’s Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), once described with the remark “The scarcest raw material nowadays is acceptance.”

6 Conclusions

If acceptance is the scarcest raw material these days, then it is of the utmost importance for the extractive industries to promote acceptance by way of good communication. To be good, communication must be based on precise knowledge of the target groups, and it must be candid, aboveboard and able to cite a sustainable corporate policy. Economic success depends on it.

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The article is based on a paper presented at the 3^rd Weimar Gypsum Conference in Weimar, 14.03.–15.03.2017