Insight of the Week

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• Industries Ranked by Social License to Operate

  

  Key Takeaways

  • Societal legitimacy is strongest where sectors are seen to meet essential human needs: Findings from GlobeScan’s From Fragility to Thick Trust global study show that sectors most closely associated with feeding, caring for, and enabling societies, such as agriculture, food, healthcare, and technology, earn comparatively stronger societal reputations. These sectors benefit from a clearer alignment with public expectations around well‑being, security, and progress.
  • However, societal reputation is fragile across most of the economy: Even the highest‑rated sectors achieve only modestly positive scores, while many industries are clustered around the middle of the rankings. This suggests that public approval is often conditional and easily eroded rather than being deeply rooted. For most sectors, societal reputation reflects a narrow margin of trust rather than a robust social license to operate.
  • Structural legitimacy gaps persist for a small group of sectors: Extractive and alcohol‑related industries continue to face pronounced skepticism across markets, reinforcing how difficult it is for some sectors to overcome entrenched concerns about social and environmental responsibility.

  GlobeScan’s recent whitepaper From Fragility to Thick Trust: Building Societal Reputation in a Low-trust Era explores how companies can cultivate Thick Trust to build a robust social license to operate. This analysis is based on a representative online survey of over 30,000 people across 33 markets, drawing upon GlobeScan’s extensive global public opinion research, which spans more than two decades of insights.

  The research shows that when rating a range of sectors on how well companies are seen to fulfill their responsibilities to society, the farming and agriculture sector is rated highest worldwide with a net +31 societal reputation score (percentage rating the sector “above average” or “among the very best” minus those rating the sector “below average” or “among the very worst”). Other sectors widely seen as being strong in fulfilling their responsibilities to society include technology/computer (+26), healthcare (+24), and food (+24). These industries that feed populations, develop innovative new technologies, and save lives attract the most positive net assessments from the global public.

  At the other end of the spectrum, the oil/petroleum industry is viewed much more ambivalently, scoring around –2 on average. Spirits/alcohol producers (–4) and the mining sector (–5) have the worst net societal reputation scores of all sectors. In these industries, the share of people who rate companies’ social performance as “below average” or “among the very worst” is roughly equal to the share who rate them positively, resulting in a slightly net negative public perception. This highlights the broad skepticism facing the extractive and alcohol industries regarding their social and environmental responsibility.

  While the overall pattern is remarkably consistent across countries, national context still matters. In markets as diverse as Brazil, China, Germany, India, Nigeria, the UK, and the USA, sectors associated with essential needs and innovation, such as food, healthcare, and technology, tend to outperform others on societal reputation. At the same time, mid‑ranking sectors show significant variation across countries, reflecting differences in economic structures, regulatory environments, and lived experiences with particular industries. For example, sectors linked to natural resources may be viewed somewhat more favorably in resource‑dependent or emerging economies while attracting deeper skepticism in Western markets. These differences reinforce that societal reputation is shaped not only by what sectors do globally, but by how their impacts are experienced locally. Most industries sit in this middle range, where small shifts in behavior, visibility, or controversy can meaningfully change public perceptions. This concentration around the midpoint highlights how societal reputation is inherently fragile for most sectors, not only those at the bottom.

  WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

  Public trust in business remains uneven and fragile across industries. While sectors associated with essential needs earn relatively stronger reputations, even the highest‑rated industries achieve only modestly positive scores. Most sectors operate on a thin margin of public trust and are vulnerable to rapid erosion of legitimacy, while a small group faces entrenched skepticism that continues to limit their social license to operate. For business, the implication is clear: social license is fragile, not given, and needs to be continually earned through credible societal performance.

  Learn more about how companies can cultivate Thick Trust to build a robust social license to operate in GlobeScan’s recent whitepaper From Fragility to Thick Trust: Building Societal Reputation in a Low-trust Era.

  Survey Question: Please rate each of the following types of companies on how well they fulfill their responsibilities to society compared to other types of companies.

  Countries surveyed: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Türkiye, UK, USA, and Vietnam.

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