About social licence
What is social licence to operate?
Social licence to operate is the ongoing acceptance a project holds among its host community and the wider public — separate from, and additional to, its legal and planning approvals. A renewable energy project can hold every permit and still lack a social licence, which shows up as objections, delays and refusals. It is a live condition that rises and falls over a project's life, not a one-time milestone.
What is social licence in renewable energy?
In renewable energy, social licence is the community acceptance a specific wind, solar, transmission or battery project holds in the region that hosts it. Australia's energy transition requires building large amounts of infrastructure in regional communities quickly, and lack of social licence — not technical or financial factors — is the most common reason these projects stall. It is measured project by project, not across the nation.
How is social licence different from community consultation?
Community consultation is an activity a developer runs; social licence is a condition a community holds. Consultation is one input that influences social licence, but running sessions does not by itself produce or prove acceptance — a well-attended session can sit on top of unspoken opposition. Social licence measures the outcome; consultation is one lever that moves it.
Can community sentiment for an energy project actually be measured?
Yes. The signals that make up social licence are largely public — council meetings, planning submissions, regional media, inquiry evidence and open community forums. Read systematically against a consistent framework, they give an objective, trackable picture of where a project's acceptance sits and which way it's moving. Earshot does this on a repeating cadence for named Australian critical-infrastructure projects.
What is the CSIRO social licence framework?
It's the Condie & Condie (2025) social licence graph — published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (12:433) by CSIRO researchers Scott A. and Corrine M. Condie — which maps community interest against net social acceptability to place a project in a defined zone (such as Social Obligation, Contested, or Social Licence). It measures social licence objectively from attitudinal data rather than intuition. Earshot scores projects against this framework so results are comparable over time and between projects.
How is the social licence score derived?
Earshot applies the social licence graph developed by CSIRO researchers, which maps community interest against social acceptability using attitudinal data. Your project is positioned on that framework and tracked as it moves over time.
Is Earshot affiliated with CSIRO?
No. Earshot applies the published, peer-reviewed social licence framework developed by CSIRO researchers. It is an independent product.
About Earshot
What is Earshot?
Earshot is a social licence intelligence platform for Australian critical infrastructure projects — renewable energy and digital infrastructure. It re-reads community acceptance of a specific project on a set cadence — monthly, weekly or daily depending on the level of engagement — and scores it against the Condie & Condie (2025) framework. It delivers this as a dashboard showing current state and trend, not a one-off report.
Who delivers Earshot?
Earshot is delivered by analysts. Every project is set up by a person — 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, so you're not left to interpret a report on your own.
What types of projects does Earshot monitor?
Earshot monitors Australian critical infrastructure: renewable energy and grid projects (wind farms, solar farms, transmission lines, battery energy storage) and digital infrastructure projects. The unit of work is a single named project, tracked over its life rather than assessed once.
Does Earshot cover digital infrastructure projects?
Yes. Earshot covers Australian critical infrastructure, which includes digital infrastructure as well as renewable energy and grid projects. The framework is sector-neutral; the sources and the grievance themes are tuned per sector.
How is Earshot different from media monitoring tools?
Media monitoring and brand-monitoring tools count mentions and score tone across everything. Earshot measures one thing — the social licence of a named critical-infrastructure project — against a defined social licence framework, and reports it as a position and a trend rather than a volume of mentions. Everyone measures the nation; Earshot tracks your project.
Is Earshot just media monitoring?
No. Media monitoring tells you what's been published. Earshot interprets the full picture of community sentiment around your project and scores it against a recognised social licence framework, so you get a measured position and a trajectory rather than a pile of clippings.
Is Earshot a report or a dashboard?
Earshot is a dashboard, not a PDF report. Community acceptance moves around construction milestones, media stories and ownership changes, so a report commissioned once goes stale. The dashboard shows the current reading and the direction of travel so a project team acts on where things are now.
How is Earshot different from research we already commission?
Commissioned research is a periodic snapshot. Earshot re-runs on a set cadence — as often as daily — so you see sentiment shift within days or weeks rather than waiting for the next quarterly report, by which point opposition has often already organised.
Who is Earshot for?
Earshot is for the teams responsible for a project's community outcomes: developers and asset owners, community engagement and social performance leads, and planning and approvals teams who need to see social risk early enough to act on it.
Practical questions
When should we start tracking social licence for a project?
As early as possible — ideally before or at announcement. Social licence forms from a community's first impressions, and the earliest signals of concern are the cheapest to respond to. Starting once opposition has already organised means managing a problem rather than heading one off.
Does Earshot replace community engagement?
No. Earshot measures the outcome of engagement and everything else affecting a community's acceptance; it doesn't do the engaging. It tells a project team where acceptance sits and which way it's moving, so their engagement effort is aimed where it matters rather than run blind.