During this year’s Benchmark Week, Stefan Debruyne, director of external affairs at Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (SQM) (NYSE:SQM), made that point unmistakably: Sustainability in lithium is as much about people, processes and transparency as it is about emissions – and it should be learned, not imposed.
SQM, one of the world’s largest lithium producers, has long been at the center of debates over extraction in Chile’s Salar de Atacama. But for Debruyne, the company’s vision for leadership goes beyond just scale.
“We approach leadership in a holistic way,” he says. “It’s not just about having the confidence to produce and be able to deliver the quality that the market needs, but also about doing it in a responsible way: dialogue, working closely with stakeholders and civil society. We are working very hard on all components.”
Building social license
Much of Debruyne’s role over the past five years has focused on improving engagement with Indigenous communities, many of which have deep historical grievances related to land, water and the impact of large-scale resource extraction.
“It’s really about being the best neighbor possible,” he says.
But getting there requires fundamental shifts in mentality and method. One of the clearest examples is what Debruyne called the principle of horizontality: a change that comes from early missteps.
Ten years ago, when communities questioned the mine’s hydrological impact, SQM responded as many industrial operators would: it sent engineers to explain the technical data.
“You’d think that would be a great thing to do,” Debruyne said. “But we learned that this is not the right way because community members are not hydrologists. There is a vertical difference.”
Instead, SQM now helps communities recruit independent experts of their choice, allowing conversations to take place ‘at a horizontal level’. This shift has been crucial in rebuilding trust.
Just as important, Debruyne said, is letting go of the Western concept of time.
“Communities have a different concept of time. It’s about giving them the time they need: taking information back, giving it back, repeating it. You may think you’re doing things the right way, but there’s always room for improvement.”
Why social investments reduce risk
For Oxfam policy advisor Andrew Bogrand, these kinds of changes are not only ethical, but also practical.
The expert, who also spoke on the panel, noted that there have been more than 800 protests or violent incidents around mining sites worldwide since 2010, including 300 since 2021 alone.
Each comes with real costs: delays, legal fees, rising insurance premiums – and, as Bogrand noted, the hidden costs of managers’ time spent on crisis management.
“There is a win-win solution,” he told the Benchmark Week audience. “It engages communities and gets everyone on the same page. Sometimes the solutions are very simple.”
As an example, he cited mining projects where warning messages in English were sent to communities that don’t speak the language, or where important safety information was delivered via text message when residents needed a physical notice board in their own dialect.
Bogrand described companies that “fork over a dollar to raise even a cent” – refusing modest requests from the community, only to face closures costing tens of millions of dollars.
Transparency: a tool, not a threat
Debruyne described transparency as one of SQM’s most effective tools, even though it initially felt counterintuitive.
A few years ago, the company made all hydrological data from its government reporting publicly available online.
“I braced myself,” he said, expecting to receive dozens of questions about brine levels. But contrary to his fears, transparency has allayed rather than fueled tension. “I got complete silence,” Debruyne noted.
It also created a basis for future cooperation, including joint environmental monitoring programs with communities that had refused to talk to SQM for years.
Move slow to move fast
The tension between rapid industry growth and slow, iterative sustainability processes often comes up in discussions with investors. For Bogrand, the answer is simple: “You have to move slowly to move fast.”
Rushing involvement early on almost always backfires, he argued, while early investments in community relations pay off over the life of a mine.
Debruyne echoed this idea, noting that patience, consistency and presence – not promises – build trust. In one case, SQM organized a visit for Atacama indigenous women leaders to electric vehicle and battery factories in Germany and Poland, allowing them to see firsthand where lithium fits into a final product.
One participant was surprised that the metal formed only a thin layer on a cathode and admitted that she had imagined an “Avatar-like” scenario in which mines destroyed vast amounts of land for each battery.
“Because they have no insight into the value chain, they make interpretations, which is human,” Debruyne told listeners. “The dialogue is so important.”
Both Debruyne and Bogrand agree that the lithium supply chain cannot scale without social acceptance, credible transparency and deep engagement with affected communities.
As Debruyne noted, “At the end of the day, it’s about people.”
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Securities Disclosure: I, Georgia Williams, have no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
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