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Article published In: Corpus Approaches to Business Communication
Edited by Mathew Gillings and Susanne Kopf
[International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 29:3] 2024
► pp. 361–388

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Framing the path to net zero

A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of sustainability disclosures by major corporate emitters, 2011–2020

ORCiD logo with link | University of Birmingham
 | University of Birmingham
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Birmingham.

Published online: 7 December 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.22123.fuo
Abstract
Big corporations are a leading contributor to global carbon emissions and their investment decisions have a significant impact on the world’s ability to tackle climate change. This study combines corpus and discourse approaches to examine how major corporate emitters have responded to the Paris Agreement, how they legitimize their practices amid mounting public pressure, and how companies operating in high- and middle-income countries differ in their framing of climate change. The results show that carbon majors place increasing focus on climate issues, widely support the goals of the Paris Agreement, and are increasingly making net-zero pledges. However, close inspection of linguistic patterns reveals a troubling disconnect between proclaimed goals, the solutions advocated for, and the radical steps needed to address the escalating climate crisis. Companies from middle-income countries devote comparatively less attention to climate change, which points to the need for better coordinated global efforts to address this problem.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous work
    • 2.1Corporate discourse on climate change
    • 2.2Theoretical framework
  • 3.Data and methods
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Carbon majors’ discursive response to the Paris Agreement
    • 4.2Differences between climate change discourses of carbon majors operating in high- and middle-income countries
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
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