Social-Impact Assessment
Operations around extractive industries (such as mining and timber harvesting) often have long histories of conflict and grievances among local communities. Environmental hazards posed to people and landscapes in the immediate vicinity of these industries may be overlooked in the larger global commodity trades of resources. Such effects may only be exacerbated with climate change in the future, posing real concerns over rising social costs of extractive operations. Given these complexities, EPS has specialized in research around community rights to water and environmental quality, social license to operate, and analyses of environmental conflicts arising social and ecological disruptions from extractives operations. For example, recent research includes analysis of the Tanzanian state’s social license to operate around end-of-lifecycle large gold mines, to communities’ rights to clean water around industrial gold mines operated by multinational corporations in Papua New Guinea.Operations around extractive industries (such as mining and timber harvesting) often have long histories of conflict and grievances among local communities. Environmental hazards posed to people and landscapes in the immediate vicinity of these industries may be overlooked in the larger global commodity trades of resources. Such effects may only be exacerbated with climate change in the future, posing real concerns over rising social costs of extractive operations. Given these complexities, EPS has specialized in research around community rights to water and environmental quality, social license to operate, and analyses of environmental conflicts arising social and ecological disruptions from extractives operations. For example, recent research includes analysis of the Tanzanian state’s social license to operate around end-of-lifecycle large gold mines, to communities’ rights to clean water around industrial gold mines operated by multinational corporations in Papua New Guinea.