Substantive and symbolic strategies sustaining the environmentally friendly ideology

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to longitudinally explore the symbolic and substantive ideological strategies located in ENGIE’s environmental discourse while considering the specific negative media context surrounding the company’s environmental activities. Design/methodology/approach Thompson’s (2007) and Eagleton’s (2007) theorizations are used to build an extended ideological framework to analyze ENGIE’s environmental talk from 2001 to 2015. Findings ENGIE drew extensively on a combination of symbolic and substantive ideological strategies in its annual and sustainability reports while ignoring several major issues raised in the press. Its substantive ideological mode of operation included actions for the environment, innovation, partnerships and educating stakeholders/staff, while its symbolic ideological mode of operation used issue identification, legal compliance, rationalization, stakeholders’ responsibilization and unification. Both ideological modes of operation worked synergistically to cast a positive light on ENGIE’s environmental activities, sustaining the ideology of a company that reconciles the irreconcilable despite negative press coverage. Originality/value This paper develops the notion of environmentally friendly ideology to analyze the environmental discourse of a polluting company. It is the first to use both Thompson’s and Eagleton’s ideological frameworks to make sense of corporate environmental discourse. Linking corporate discourse with media coverage, it further contributes to the burgeoning literature that interpretively distinguishes between symbolic and substantive ideological strategies by highlighting the company’s progressive shift from symbolic to more substantive disclosure.