Social and Environmental Reporting

Recently business organisations have enthusiastically embraced social and environmental reporting, but questions are starting to emerge about the effects this type of reporting has on organisational or social change. In this book, Dr Colin Higgins examines language and textual strategies that suggest business organisations can use social/environmental reporting to shape broader social understandings about the responsible or sustainable corporation. The insights show new ways in which business organisations resist fundamental social change. Importantly, the book argues that stakeholder groups, equipped with new awareness of language use, can construct new ways to target unsustainable business practice.

Dr Colin Higgins is a lecturer in the School of Management and Information Systems at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He is also an associate of the university's Institute for Sustainability and Innovation. He has published widely in the areas of social/environmental reporting, corporate responsibility and sustainability.