Sustainability Beyond Instrumentality: Towards an Immanent Ethics of Organizational Environmentalism

Abstract

In research on organizational environmentalism, there has been a repeated call for ways to go beyond the business case for sustainability frame. While the business case frame assumes that developing eco-friendly solutions can benefit firms financially, this article highlights the importance of challenging established understandings of sustainability. To this end, I introduce Deleuze's distinction between morality and ethics. Morality involves passing judgements on the basis of values. Ethics provides an immanent evaluation of the principles by which specific solutions are considered sustainable. Analysing interviews with architects, building engineers and business developers, the article shows how these actors reflect on the values that form the basis of their practice, but also try to imagine new ways of working with sustainability. In conclusion, the article suggests that an immanent ethics of organizational environmentalism can allow for the values that inform environmental efforts in organizations to be evaluated as well as alternative visions of sustainability to be created.

Dogmatic, instrumental and paradoxical frames: A pragmatic research framework for studying organizational sustainability

“…(2017) also explicitly identified the normative position of an instrumental economic frame as utilitarian. Johnsen (2020, p. 2) argued that ‘the instrumental approach suffers from several limitations, particularly a tendency to naturalise a technical view of sustainability and thereby deprive the concept of its political and ethical dimensions’. While these limitations are appreciated in the extant literature on the instrumental economic capital frame, the utilitarian position of instrumental social/natural capital frames is not recognized.…”

Tactics of Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Ways of Operating in the Contested Terrain of Green Architecture

“…The second type of entrepreneurial tactic used by the respondents consisted of challenging the dominant perception of sustainability and thus creating a space for new understandings of green architecture. This tactic assumes that the meaning of sustainability cannot be taken for granted, attempting instead to experiment with new understandings of sustainability in the construction industry (Johnsen, 2021). Opportunities are therefore considered possibilities for developing alternative perceptions of green architecture.…”

Follow the genuine leader: The “green imitation”

“…Fortunately, there is growing awareness of environmental threats and a greater willingness to change course (Johnsen, 2020;Mazutis et al, 2021;Wahl & Bull, 2014;Wang & Lei, 2020).…”

“…Fortunately, there is growing awareness of environmental threats and a greater willingness to change course (Johnsen, 2020; Mazutis et al, 2021; Wahl & Bull, 2014; Wang & Lei, 2020). Although a degree of “green skepticism” persists (Szabo & Webster, 2021) and attitudes vary greatly across regions and sectors (Grigoletto et al, 2021), a serious debate on environmental issues and sustainability is taking place all over the world (Abad‐Segura et al, 2020).…”