Words not actions! The ideological role of sustainable development reporting

• Published in: Accounting, auditing & accountability journal Vol. 22; no. 8; pp. 1211 - 1257
• Main Authors: Milne, Markus J, Tregidga, Helen, Walton, Sara
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bradford Emerald Group Publishing Limited 23.10.2009
• Subjects: Accounting methods; Business associations; Business communications; Conversation; Corporate image; Discourse analysis; Economic growth; Environmental protection; Financial accounting; Financial reporting; Founding; International; Management science; New Zealand; Paradigms; Pragmatism; Society; Studies; Sustainability; Sustainable development; Values; New Zealand; New Zealand; Conversation; Financial reporting; Sustainable development; Corporate image
• ISSN: 0951-3574; 1758-4205
• DOI: 10.1108/09513570910999292

Purpose - Through an analysis of corporate sustainable development reporting, this paper seeks to examine critically language use and other visual (re)presentations of sustainable development within the business context. It aims to provide a framework to interpret and tease out business representations of sustainable development. Such representations are argued to be constitutive of the way that business has come to "know" and "do" sustainable development and, therefore, to constrain and enable particular actions and developments.Design methodology approach - The study uses a mix of synthesis, interpretive and discourse analysis to locate, interpret and critically analyse a corpus of written and presentational texts produced by a New Zealand business association and eight of its founding members' early triple bottom line reports.Findings - The business association and its members' reports are shown to present a pragmatic and middle-way discourse on business and the environment. Through the use of rhetorical claims to pragmatism and action, this discourse suggests that businesses are "doing" sustainability. But critical analysis and interpretation within a wider framework reveal a narrow, largely economic and instrumental approach to the natural environment.Originality value - This paper offers a diagrammatic synthesis of the contested "middle ground" of the sustainable development debate, and thereby provides a frame of reference for further interpretational work on organisations and sustainable development.