Introduction

While oil, gas and mining companies have used engineering innovation to minimize "below-the-ground" risks, solving the "above-the-ground" risk remains a multi-billion dollar problem. In the last years extractive companies worldwide have faced a sharp escalation in number and intensity of social conflicts around their operations, while at the same time having to comply with a stream of new governmental regulations aimed at raising the bar on environmental, social and governance performance. These "above-the- ground" events have caused a number of costly disruptions for extractive industry ...