CSIRO's report, 'Social dimensions of mining in Australia - understanding the minerals industry as a social landscape' studied company public reports and conference papers and found engagement around critical social issues had increased over the past five years.
Report co-author Dr Fiona Solomon said the literature search highlighted the need for enhanced integration across the various key social functions and between social and other aspects of the sector, such as environment and business planning.
"The social dimension of the minerals industry… remains the least well understood dimension of the concept of sustainable development's 'triple bottom line' of economy, environment and society approaches, and problems to be found across these disciplines can be confusing to non-specialists," she said.
The themes identified in the literature were mining industry features, context and changes, governance and regulation, indigenous and developer perspectives, native title and agreement making, communities, community engagement and community development and interpretations of sustainable development and social license to operate.
Dr Solomon's team experimented with mapping tools to produce visualisations of the literature and how it had changed, generating concept maps – or 'social landscapes' – of relationships between, and relative emphasis on, particular issues.
"Landscapes have been chosen as the visual form for the maps, because the spatial repreentation implies connections with an aerial view of mines and Australian landscapes," Solomon said.
Some of the biggest factors in the report's example maps were community development and mining. Other strong themes included gender, workplace cultures, working arrangements and the changing role of government.
The team held workshops with social researchers and industry specialists which confirmed the diversity of perspectives on the social dimensions of mining and noted an under-investment in social research within the industry.
