Generic empathy in energy industry sustainability discourse

Abstract

This study examines the textual and visual discourse relating to sustainability initiatives on the websites of three of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies, namely BP, Shell and TotalEnergies. The study’s conceptual underpinnings draw on what is advanced in scholarship on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Multimodal critical discourse analysis is the approach used, with a focus on the legitimation practices by the companies. The findings show that their actions are discursively constructed as compatible with efforts to achieve sustainability, and function to justify the continued use of fossil fuels into the foreseeable future. The use of stock imagery depicting people in generic roles and recognisable environmental symbols support what is communicated textually. I argue that this conveys generic empathy, which lacks substance and contradicts the current scientific consensus that fossil fuel exploitation needs to be phased out as a matter of urgency to slow life-threatening climate change.