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From Salta to Cornwall: What Builds Social Licence in Lithium Mining?
September 22, 2026
Clara Segón
Standards Manager
Clara Segón, TDi’s Standards Manager, draws on her personal ties to Salta, Argentina and Cornwall, England to explore how the same mineral – lithium – can demand very different approaches to community relations. Drawing on years working on mining projects worldwide, she argues that social licence isn’t a permit to be obtained, but a relationship that must be continually earned.
I am from Salta, Argentina. I left my hometown in 2007 and have lived in Cornwall since 2016. In between, I spent years working on mining projects around the world, much of that work directly with communities, stakeholder engagement and social value creation.
Mining is also part of my family life. My husband is third-generation mining, and mining and critical minerals regularly make their way into our dinner table conversation. Our children belong to a generation much more willing to challenge mining as an industry. They ask why we need these minerals, what the impacts are, who benefits and what is left behind.
Right now, lithium is part of the conversation in both places I call home. Salta is seeing significant lithium development in the Puna. Cornwall is also looking to lithium as part of a renewed mining industry, through both hard-rock and geothermal projects.
The mineral may be the same. The communities, expectations and impacts are not. And this is where social licence becomes interesting.
The same mineral does not create the same social context
The lithium projects in Salta are predominantly associated with brines in the high-altitude salt flats of the Puna. Cornwall has very different geology, with lithium being pursued in hard rock as well as geothermal waters.
Different extraction methods bring different questions around water, land, processing, infrastructure, energy and impacts. But geology is only part of the difference.
The stakeholder landscape is completely different too. In Salta, projects may interact with remote communities, Indigenous peoples, long distances, water constraints and areas where infrastructure and economic opportunities have historically been limited.
Cornwall has another reality. Mining is deeply embedded in Cornish history and identity, but most people living here today have not experienced a large operating mining sector. There are expectations around jobs, regeneration and the return of an industry that once defined the region, but also uncertainty about which projects will progress and what the local benefits will really look like.
Even speaking about “the Cornish community” is too simplistic. An approach that works in Camborne or Redruth may make little sense in Newquay. Their histories, economies, demographics and relationships with mining are different.
The same is true in Salta. A provincial stakeholder plan tells you very little about what matters to one particular community. This is why I struggle when community relations become too standardised.
Mining companies often operate across countries and continents. Their community relations strategies cannot simply be copied from one project to another.
Social licence is not another permit
I also think we need to be careful with the way we talk about social licence. It can sometimes sound like something a company “gets”. Consultation completed. Stakeholders engaged. Support obtained. Social licence achieved.
I do not think it works like that.
A permit can be obtained. Social licence is a relationship. And relationships change.
They change when the project changes, when expectations are not met, when impacts appear, when economic circumstances change, or simply when people stop feeling listened to.
This is why responsible community relations need to start early. Too often, technical, financial and commercial decisions are made first and social or community specialists are brought in later.
They are then expected to explain decisions they did not help shape, manage expectations they did not create and sometimes repair relationships they were not there to build.
That is backwards. The earlier a company understands its stakeholders, the local context and what people expect from a project, the more opportunity it has to make better decisions.
Waiting increases risk. Once expectations have been created or trust has been damaged, rebuilding the relationship requires much more time, people and money.
Acceptance is not necessarily understanding
This is particularly important when mining is presented as an economic opportunity.
When I return to Salta today, I can see how much the city has changed. Finding an apartment or even a rental car during my stay can be difficult. There are new neighbourhoods, restaurants, businesses and much more international activity.
People’s views about mining are mixed. For those with limited economic opportunities, mining can mean something very tangible: work, better income and possibilities that may not otherwise exist. Others ask harder questions about environmental impacts, water, long-term development and how much of the value generated from Salta’s resources actually stays in Salta. Both positions matter.
But welcoming an opportunity is not necessarily the same as fully understanding what a project may bring. The promise of jobs and investment is powerful, particularly where communities are struggling economically. That gives companies more responsibility to communicate uncertainty, not less.
Cornwall has its own version of this challenge. Lithium projects here are real, but mining development is rarely linear. Projects change, financing changes, timelines move and some projects pause. Imerys British Lithium moving into care and maintenance before commercial production is one recent reminder of that reality.
Potential should be communicated as potential. Not certainty.
Communities experience the company
Over the years, I have worked with mining communities in very different parts of the world. I spent around five years working with communities in the Atacama region, where lithium development is now significant. I remember small and remote communities with very limited infrastructure and services. But what I remember most is their resilience. People finding ways to make things work. Welcoming outsiders. Fighting for opportunities. Holding on to the hope that mining and investment could make life better.
I have not been back for years and I genuinely cannot wait to return. I hope I will see change for the better. Better infrastructure. Stronger local businesses. More opportunities. Young people with more choices. Because after years of mining investment, the question I want to ask is very simple: What changed for the people who were already there?
This is also why I think responsible community relations need to go much further than consultation numbers, stakeholder meetings or engagement KPIs. Communities do not experience a stakeholder engagement plan. They experience the company. Whether somebody listens. Whether commitments are kept. Whether concerns receive an answer. Whether impacts are addressed. Whether opportunities are genuinely accessible. And whether what happens on the ground matches what people were told would happen.
That is where trust is built.
Understand the place first
Salta and Cornwall are connected to the same demand for lithium, but the social conditions around their projects are very different. Different geology. Different communities. Different histories. Different expectations.
Responsible community relations therefore cannot start with a template. It has to start with understanding the people and the place.
Listen before assuming what the community needs. Be clear about what the project can and cannot promise. Bring social expertise into decisions early enough for it to influence them. And treat trust as something that must be continually earned, rather than something obtained through one successful consultation.
Twenty years from now, I hope I can look at lithium development in both Salta and Cornwall and see communities that are stronger because mining happened there. More skills. More opportunities. Stronger local businesses. Better infrastructure. More choices.
But those outcomes will not happen simply because lithium is valuable. They depend on the relationships built around its extraction.
So perhaps the starting point for social licence is simpler than we sometimes make it: Understand the people and the place before asking them to understand the mine.
Clara Segón | Standards Manager, TDi Sustainability | September 2026
Find out more about TDi’s approach to:
- Social licence to operate | Helping mining companies build the kind of ongoing relationship Clara describes, rather than treating community consent as a box to tick. Read more
- Community engagement and stakeholder management | Supporting. organisations in understanding a community’s specific context before designing an engagement strategy. Read more
- Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) | Building genuine consent processes into mining projects from the start, not after decisions are already made. Read more
- Critical minerals | Ou work across lithium and other critical mineral supply chains, from due diligence to community relations. Read more
