The 2022 Oder River Ecological Disaster: An Analysis of Extraction Companies’ Social License to Operate

dc.abstract.en	The 2022 Oder River ecological disaster stands as one of the most severe environmental crises in recent European history. Triggered by a combination of climate factors and anthropogenic saline discharges, the event resulted in a massive die-off of aquatic life. This catastrophe exposed deep environmental vulnerabilities and ruptured the social contract between the natural resource extractive industry and civil society. Against this backdrop, this thesis investigates the concept of the Social License to Operate, an unwritten agreement rooted in community acceptance. The core research problem examines how this large-scale ecological disaster intensified the rupture in the social license to operate between the extractive industry, specifically represented by KGHM Polska Miedź S.A., and non-governmental organizations. To address this issue, the research employs an embedded single-case study methodology using qualitative data. By triangulating KGHM’s corporate sustainability reports and press declarations with primary interview data from an environmental activist and secondary civil society reports, the study directly contrasts the corporate crisis narrative with the stakeholder reality. A tripartite analytical framework is used to systematically evaluate corporate impression management strategies, civic regulatory demands, and the resulting status of the social license. The findings reveal a discursive friction and a collapse of procedural fairness. The industry responded to the crisis through defensive impression management aimed at preserving pragmatic legitimacy. Corporate communications relied heavily on deflection, attributing the pollution to climate variables and natural causes, alongside bolstering strategies that highlighted historical philanthropic achievements. These symbolic actions insulated the company’s operational core from moral accountability. Simultaneously, civil society systematically deconstructed these narratives, identifying the disaster as the direct result of chronic anthropogenic salinization and state regulatory negligence. Confronted with opaque decision-making and institutional inaction, organizations transitioned into de facto regulators. They exercised mistrustful vigilance through independent environmental water monitoring, physical protests, and formal demands for mandatory technological upgrades, thereby enforcing the environmental accountability that the state failed to provide. Finally, the thesis concludes that the industry’s social license to operate remains fundamentally withheld by civil society. The failure to establish transparent dialogue or engage in collaborative moderation prevented the achievement of moral legitimacy and interactional trust. The findings highlight that in contexts of high environmental risk and corporate power asymmetry, active and mistrustful civil vigilance serves as an essential democratic mechanism to challenge the corporate instrumentalization of the social license.
dc.affiliation	Uniwersytet Warszawski
dc.affiliation.department	Uniwersyteckie Centrum Badań nad Środowiskiem Przyrodniczym i Zrównoważonym Rozwojem
dc.contributor.author	Baptista Rocha, João
dc.contributor.promoter	Rogatko, Michał
dc.contributor.reviewer	Rogatko, Michał
dc.contributor.reviewer	Wójcik, Filip
dc.date.defence	2026-07-24
dc.date.issued	2026
dc.date.submitted	2026-07-11
dc.identifier.apd	254209
dc.language	en
dc.language.other	pl
dc.publisher	Uniwersytet Warszawski
dc.rights	ClosedAccess
dc.subject.en	Social license to operate
dc.subject.en	Mining
dc.subject.en	Ecological Disaster
dc.subject.en	Legitimacy
dc.subject.en	Sustainability Reporting
dc.subject.en	Non
dc.subject.en	governmental organizations – Legitimacy Gap – Recovery Strategies
dc.title	The 2022 Oder River Ecological Disaster: An Analysis of Extraction Companies’ Social License to Operate
dc.title.alternative	Katastrofa ekologiczna na Odrze w 2022 roku: analiza społecznej akceptacji działalności przedsiębiorstw wydobywczych.
dc.type	MasterThesis