Counter-reporting sustainability from the bottom up: the case of the construction company WeBuild and dam-related conflicts
Controversies around large-scale development projects offer many cases and insights which may be analyzed through the lenses of corporate social (ir)responsibility (CSIR) and business ethics studies. In this paper, we confront the CSR narratives and strategies of WeBuild (formerly known as Salini Im...
| Authors: | ; ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
2023
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| In: |
Journal of business ethics
Year: 2023, Volume: 182, Issue: 1, Pages: 7-32 |
| Further subjects: | B
WeBuild
B Environmental Justice B Hydropower schemes B political ecology B Counter-reporting B Post-normal science B Large dams B Aufsatz in Zeitschrift B Corporate social irresponsibility B EJAtlas B Salini Impregilo |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) kostenfrei |
| Summary: | Controversies around large-scale development projects offer many cases and insights which may be analyzed through the lenses of corporate social (ir)responsibility (CSIR) and business ethics studies. In this paper, we confront the CSR narratives and strategies of WeBuild (formerly known as Salini Impregilo), an Italian transnational construction company. Starting from the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas), we collect evidence from NGOs, environmental justice organizations, journalists, scholars, and community leaders on socio-environmental injustices and controversies surrounding 38 large hydropower schemes built by the corporation throughout the last century. As a counter-reporting exercise, we code (un)sustainability discourses from a plurality of sources, looking at their discrepancy under the critical lenses of post-normal science and political ecology, with environmental justice as a normative framework. Our results show how the mismatch of narratives can be interpreted by considering the voluntary, self-reporting, non-binding nature of CSR accounting performed by a corporation wishing to grow in a global competitive market. Contributing to critical perspectives on political CS(I)R, we question the reliability of current CSR mechanisms and instruments, calling for the inclusion of complexity dimensions in and a re-politicization of CS(I)R accounting and ethics. We argue that the fields of post-normal science and political ecology can contribute to these goals. |
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| ISSN: | 1573-0697 |
| Reference: | Errata "Correction to: Counter-reporting sustainability from the bottom up: the case of the construction company WeBuild and dam-related conflicts (2023)"
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-04946-6 |