Social licence is not something you go and get when a project hits trouble. It is the credit you built quietly, months earlier, when there was nothing to defend and no one was watching. The projects that stay steady through the hard weeks are rarely the ones with the cleanest delivery plan. The road closure that lands badly. The design change no one expected. By the time those arrive, the relationship that carries you through them is either there or it isn't. The work that builds it looks unremarkable. Turning up to the community meeting when there is no announcement to make. Answering honestly when the easy move is to defer. Telling people what you don't yet know, not only what you do. None of it makes a headline. All of it counts. Then the hard moment lands, and the community extends something that looks a lot like patience. Projects that hold their social licence treat engagement as credit they build early. The ones that struggle reach for it the week they need to draw it down. Engagement is not what you do when a project is under pressure. It is what makes the pressure survivable. #CommunityEngagement #SocialLicence #Infrastructure #IAP2 #MajorProjects Working on something similar? Reach out to Anna. Email: hello@evokeadvisory.au Message me on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/annacush