Duwebi, N; Gorse, C; Sturges, J and Bates, M (2017) Reporting corporate sustainability and the challenges of political rhetoric. In: Chan, P W and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 33rd Annual ARCOM Conference, 4-6 September 2017, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, UK.
Abstract
The political voice of sustainability has broken. Presidential changes led to the world's most powerful nation hardening its tone and re-prioritising its stance, bringing with it a distinct loss of climate change vocabulary. The UK, which also carries global weight, amended the nation's discourse and made regulatory changes that dropped its commitment to zero carbon buildings. BREXIT also brings future disconnect from EU directives. The political rhetoric and regulatory language brings uncertainty to those that have positioned themselves for sustainable practice. While the political noise and confusion will affect construction and corporate sustainability, the position that industry has and is taking is of interest. A review of annual reports of multinational corporations was undertaken to understand the action taken and how organisations, construction and non-construction, are reporting their position, with regard to sustainability. The review reflects on the corporate approaches that may survive the short-term political turmoil and positions that organisations are committing to.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | corporate reporting; sustainability |
| Index terms: | climate change, commitment, hardening, annual report, prioritizing, sustainable practice, zero carbon building |
| Subjects: | decision analysis, sustainable practices, concrete and cementitious materials, psychology, sustainability and energy, business, climate science |
| Topics: | Design Practice, Organizational Design, Construction Materials, Risk Management, Sustainability, Governance |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here