Social license refers to the voluntary acceptance or approval of a specific project/business by community/public stakeholders.

There are four basic levels of social license:

1. not granted or withdrawn

2. acceptance

3. approval

4. identification

If a project has no social license to operate, stakeholders do not see the project as legitimate and may actively work against it.

To reach the highest level of social license, stakeholders must widely trust the project operator - which is generally rare.