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Social Licence Intelligence

Know where your project's social licence stands — before it decides the outcome.

Earshot is project-level social-licence intelligence for Australian critical infrastructure. We track the conversation around your renewable energy and digital infrastructure projects and score it against the social licence framework developed by CSIRO researchers — so you can see risk building while there's still time to act on it.

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The problem

You're measuring social licence at the wrong altitude.

Australia tracks social licence for the energy transition at the national level. The CSIRO and the federal government run a national sentiment survey, and it's a genuinely useful read on how the country feels about renewables overall.

But projects don't get approved or delayed nationally. They get approved or delayed in a shire, a valley, a stretch of coastline — by the few thousand people who live closest to them. The national mood tells you almost nothing about whether the community around your transmission corridor is shifting from cautious to organised.

Everyone measures the nation. Nobody tracks your project.

And by the time the research lands, the moment's passed.

The standard tool is commissioned research: a survey or sentiment report, run periodically, delivered as a snapshot. It's valuable, but it's always describing a moment that's already gone. Opposition compounds in the gaps between reports. A local Facebook group, a council deputation, a landholder dispute — these build over weeks, not quarters, and the first time many developers see them clearly is when they've already hardened.

Lost social licence is expensive to win back. It shows up as delays, higher costs, drawn-out approvals and declining trust — and it's far easier to manage early than to repair late.

What Earshot does

Earshot watches the social licence conversation around your specific project, on a set cadence, and turns it into a position you can actually track.

We bring together the sources that shape community sentiment at the project level — local and regional media, community and advocacy channels, planning and consultation records, and the public record of how comparable projects have been received — and we score what we find against an established, peer-reviewed framework.

The result isn't a clipping service or a mood summary. It's a clear read on where your project sits, which way it's moving, and what's driving the shift.

The product

A current read on where your project actually stands.

Not a report you receive next quarter. A working view your team can return to — scored, contextualised, and re-read on your project's cadence.

How it works

Four steps. One running record.

  1. 01

    We define your project's footprint.

    Not "renewables in Australia" or "digital infrastructure in Australia" — your project, its host community, the relevant decision-makers, and the projects nearby that share its fate.

  2. 02

    We monitor on a set cadence.

    Earshot ingests the sources that drive local social licence and builds a project-specific record over time — refreshed monthly, weekly or daily depending on your tier — rather than starting from scratch with each new report.

  3. 03

    We score against the social licence framework.

    We apply the social licence graph developed by CSIRO researchers, which plots community interest against social acceptability and lets that position be measured quantitatively as it changes. Your project gets a position on that map — and, more importantly, a trajectory.

  4. 04

    You see it early.

    You get an ongoing read on where your social licence stands and what's moving it, surfaced while there's room to respond — not a post-mortem after the opposition is organised.

What you get

A clear read — and a moving picture.

  • A scored social licence position

    Measured against the CSIRO framework rather than gut feel, and refreshed on your cadence.

  • Trajectory, not just a snapshot

    How your position is moving over time, so a slow slide is visible before it becomes a crisis.

  • The drivers behind the movement

    What's actually shaping sentiment in your community, from cumulative-impact concerns to the quality of engagement.

  • Early signals on emerging opposition

    While there's still time to respond.

  • Project-level context from comparable developments

    What's helped and what's hurt similar projects elsewhere in Australia.

  • Regular, plain-language briefings

    Your team and stakeholders can actually use them.

Levels of engagement

Pick the cadence your project is actually moving at.

Earshot re-reads your project on a set cadence, and the cadence is the level of engagement — not a different product.

  • Watch

    Monthly · updated on the 1st

    For pre-lodgement projects and operating assets, where you want to know if something changes.

  • Track

    Weekly · updated each Sunday

    For projects in assessment, where the consent clock is running.

  • Respond

    Daily · overnight

    For projects that are already contested and moving faster than a week. Daily is the fastest cadence Earshot offers.

Whichever level you're on, your first read is delivered when you're onboarded — you're never waiting for a boundary to see your project for the first time.

Why Earshot is different

Measured intelligence, not a mood summary.

It's tracked, not a snapshot.

Commissioned research tells you where you stood last quarter. Earshot re-reads your project every month, week or day — depending on your tier — so you see where you stand now, and where you're heading.

It's about your project, not the country.

National sentiment tracking measures the mood of Australia. Earshot measures the social licence of the project you're actually trying to deliver.

It's scored, not just summarised.

Media monitoring tells you what was published. Earshot tells you what it means for your social licence — measured against a recognised framework, so the read is consistent over time and across projects.

The intelligence compounds.

Because Earshot builds a running record rather than re-surveying from zero, every refresh adds to the picture. The longer it runs, the earlier it sees things coming.

Who it's for

Built for the developers carrying Australia's critical infrastructure.

If your project's timeline depends on the community around it, Earshot is built for you.

  • Wind

    Onshore & offshore

  • Solar

    Utility-scale generation

  • Transmission

    Lines and corridors

  • Storage

    Grid-scale BESS

  • Digital infrastructure

    Hyperscale & colocation campuses

The framework behind it

Applied research, not gut feel.

Earshot scores against the social licence graph — a peer-reviewed framework published by CSIRO researchers (Condie, 2025) that uses attitudinal data to map community interest and social acceptability, and to assess how that position changes over time.

It matters because social licence has long been easy to talk about and hard to measure. The framework gives the concept a rigorous, quantitative footing — and Earshot applies it on a repeating cadence, at the level of your individual project.

Earshot applies published, peer-reviewed CSIRO research. It is an independent product, not affiliated with or endorsed by CSIRO.

How it's delivered

Delivered by analysts, backed by a dashboard.

Earshot isn't software you're left to operate. Every project is set up by an analyst — its footprint, its host community, the decision-makers, the comparable projects nearby — and every read is interpreted before it reaches you. Between those conversations, your team signs in to a dashboard showing where the project sits, which way it's moving and what's driving the shift.

The engagement scales with the project: a light watch on a pre-lodgement site, a tracked read through assessment, a full response engagement on something already contested. What doesn't change is that a person is delivering the judgement.

Get in touch

See where your project's social licence really stands.

If you've got a project where community sentiment could move your timeline — and most do — we'll walk you through what Earshot would track and what you'd see.

Your details come straight to us. Someone will be in touch shortly. No obligation.