Introduction
Population growth, the speed of urbanization in Asia and the more sophisticated requirements of the developed world have led to an increased demand for metals (ICMM, 2013). Although mining activities may be good for the local economy, mining can also have a negative impact both on the local environment and society. In general, mining may cause conflict between corporations, the government and the communities affected by its activities, and these often concerns land ownership, unfair compensational practices, inequitable resource distribution, environmental degradation, mine induced poverty and conflicts over human rights abuses (Abuya, 2015). The negative impacts have generated a significantly increased stakeholder pressure over the last twenty years from non-governmental organizations, social movements and indigenous peoples (Kapelus, 2002). Hence, stakeholder requirements and the expectations that a company will mitigate the negative aspects of its business and instead make a positive contribution to local society have increased (Thorén Hedin and Ranängen, 2017). Maintaining good relations with for example local authorities and politicians, neighbours, future employees and public opinion formers is important (Ranängen and Lindman, 2017; Ranängen, 2015). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is often defined as the integration of social and environmental concerns in a company’s business operations and its interactions with stakeholders on a voluntary basis (Dahlsrud, 2008). Although CSR is on the global agenda, the importance that is attached to it differs from country to country (Idowu and Leal Filho, 2009).
Final conclusion
In order to have a broad, ongoing approval and acceptance of society to conduct its activities (Prno and Slocombe 2012) the mining companies need to go above and beyond legal and regulatory requirements (Lesser et al., 2017). In order to obtain the SLO the communitycompany expectations need to be reconcilable (Prno and Slocombe, 2012). Hence, the purpose with this paper was therefore to explore if CSR practice actually complies with stakeholder’s interests but also what these interests consist of. This paper shows that the Nordic mining industry’s CSR practice actually complies with their stakeholder’s interests within some areas like risk management, occupational health and safety, sustainable use of water, and the prevention of pollution from emissions, effluents and waste which confirms previous research, see Ranängen and Lindman, 2017. However, there are several important areas where it doesn’t comply. The mining companies prefer to communicate about self-regulatory practices and management systems, disclosure and employment while the stakeholders value the respect for the rule of law, anti-corruption, sustainable use of energy, sustainable land use and sustainable transportation and the recycling of metals. However, by understanding the local society and using its input for decision making the Nordic mining industry can develop its CSR practice further (Thorén Hedin & Ranängen, 2017). This can be accomplished by establishing and maintaining high quality contacts with local stakeholders (Moffat and Zhang, 2014). There is no standard as to what activities/issues the SLO concept includes and these activities/issues are varying depending on the particular situation (Lesser et al, 2017). Although there seem to be similarities between countries, there are also differences (Bice, 2014).
