The concept of social license to operate (SLO) is increasingly being used throughout the world to describe a specific aspect of company–community relations in resource-extractive projects, in particular how different actors interact to resolve, or not, the social and economic impacts on local communities and other stakeholders. This article will tease out the main elements of the SLO concept and examine the degree to which both actors (mining companies and communities), verbally and in action, respond toward one another. Based on previous empirical studies of scholars in the field, we have applied an analytical framework of SLO to empirically test whether or not it can provide greater insight into the motivations both behind a community's acceptance of or opposition to a company's project, as well as the extent to which a company is willing to appease the public in order to gain their acceptance. The framework combines a set of normative criteria the company must meet as a precondition to gaining SLO, with different levels of community acceptance indicating the degree to which a community bestows SLO on the company. Eight case studies from the European north (two mining projects in each of the countries Norway, Finland, Russia, and Sweden) have been selected to test the SLO analytical framework in order to ultimately determine whether a company's specific SLO practices (i.e. active public engagement, sponsoring community projects, etc.) generate different levels of community acceptance. Although there are other contributing factors that affect company–community relations in the context of mining projects, most notably the legal and regulatory frameworks for resource-extractive projects, the goal of this article is to focus on the social and ethical dimensions of the company–community relationship.

In Sweden’s Norrbotten County, a “green transition” driven by market demand and new normative structures is underway, creating a regional mega-project designed to put Sweden at the forefront of emerging green industries. These industries, such as carbon-neutral steel fabrication, battery production, and data center hosting, all require large amounts of energy, land, and minerals. This paper applies the regional environmental governance framework to Arctic data to examine which stakeholders have the capacity to impose their agenda on the Arctic environment and the points of conflict and collaboration during this period of accelerated growth. The paper tests the assumption that regional governance accommodates a plurality of interests. A case study examining Norrbotten County’s industrial mega-project centered around Luleå, Sweden, identifies a dominant coalition uniting government and industry that supports norms seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this region. However, the existing regional governance model does a poor job of integrating the local Indigenous Sámi preferences for land use. At the core of the difference between actors advancing the green economy and the local Sámi reindeer herders are divergent conceptions of nature and sustainability.