No End in Sight? A Greenwash Review and Research Agenda
Greenwashing is more virulent than ever. A profusion of environmental, social, and governance and net zero commitments are becoming fraught with questionable and misleading claims. At the same time, we are no closer to solving the pressing environmental and social issues of our time. In this review, we seek to examine this shift and summarize changes in greenwash research into three key phases: (a) 1.0 Static Communication; (b) 2.0 Dynamic Management; and (c) 3.0 Narratives about the Future. We analyze current key areas of developing literature and point to numerous open questions for future research. Next, we go beyond much of the published work to examine emerging tactics and lay out a forward-looking agenda for future research. We also propose a model of Corporate Miscommunication, integrating various streams in greenwash research. In doing so, we seek to lay a pathway for greenwashing researchers to finally find that elusive "end" to greenwashing.
Interorganizational Sensemaking of the Transition Toward a Circular Value Chain
The transition toward the circular economy requires stakeholders to collaborate along value chains. Yet, such collaborations are considerably challenging. Given the paradigmatic change, stakeholders face high levels of uncertainty and also need to align on a common way forward. We extend research on interorganizational sensemaking and the circular economy by exploring the process of interorganizational alignment in a European consortium of over 150 companies representing the value chain for flexible packaging with the objective to transform the value chain from linear to circular. We find that the interorganizational sensemaking process unfolds across three levels-organization, value chain, and ecosystem-which provide different reference frames for the process. We provide insights into how these frames, power dynamics, and identity considerations influence this process. Our findings highlight the importance of considering interdependencies between stakeholders and a collective reconceptualization of the established value chain to successfully transition toward a circular one.
Toward a Validated Competence Framework for Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Knowledge, skills, and attitudes to manage sustainable development have become significant components of different career paths. Previous research has explored which competencies are needed for future change agents in the field of sustainable development. Sustainable entrepreneurship can be seen as a promising work context in which these competencies are truly at the forefront and enacted. Several researchers have compiled frameworks of key competencies. However, their work is exploratory in nature and a more in-depth analysis of these frameworks is called for. In this study, an existing competence framework for sustainable entrepreneurship was tested in terms of construct validity, among 402 would-be entrepreneurs. The results suggest the inclusion of six competencies, which constitute a competence framework with a good model fit. Furthermore, a new combination of two existing competencies is proposed. This study has important implications for the debate on which competencies for sustainable entrepreneurship are essential on theoretical and empirical grounds.
The politics of environmental concern: A cross-national analysis
Prior research in the U.S. has found that liberals are generally more environmentally concerned than conservatives. The present study explores whether conservatives' opposition to environmental protection is solely a U.S. or a universal phenomenon and whether this association is contingent on country-level characteristics such as development, environmental conditions, and communist history. Employing data for 19 countries from the ISSP module "Environment II," this paper explores inter-country variations in the relationship between individual conservatism and environmental concern using multilevel modeling with cross-level interactions. The models reveal a number of intriguing associations. Most important, conservatives' support for environmental protection varies by country. This variation is a function of country-level characteristics. The strongest opposition of conservatives' toward environmental protection was observed in developed, capitalist nations, with superior environmental conditions. On the other hand, in less developed countries, and countries characterized by poor environmental quality, conservatives are more environmentally concerned than liberals.
Natural Resource Extraction, Armed Violence, and Environmental Degradation
The goal of this article is to demonstrate that environmental sociologists cannot fully explain the relationship between humans and the natural world without theorizing a link between natural resource extraction, armed violence, and environmental degradation. The authors begin by arguing that armed violence is one of several overlapping mechanisms that provide powerful actors with the means to (a) prevail over others in conflicts over natural resources and (b) ensure that natural resources critical to industrial production and state power continue to be extracted and sold in sufficient quantities to promote capital accumulation, state power, and ecological unequal exchange. The authors then identify 10 minerals that are critical to the functioning of the U.S. economy and/or military and demonstrate that the extraction of these minerals often involves the use of armed violence. They further demonstrate that armed violence is associated with the activities of the world's three largest mining companies, with African mines that receive World Bank funding, and with petroleum and rainforest timber extraction. The authors conclude that the natural resource base on which industrial societies stand is constructed in large part through the use and threatened use of armed violence. As a result, armed violence plays a critical role in fostering environmental degradation and ecological unequal exchange.
Displaced New Orleans Residents in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: Results from a Pilot Survey
This article introduces us to the complexities of conducting social scientific research in a major urban disaster zone and reports on results from the most systematic survey at the time aimed at tracking the whereabouts of pre-Katrina residents during the first year of recovery, the Displaced New Orleans Residents Pilot Survey. This survey drew an area-probability sample of pre-Katrina residents and set out to interview them approximately twelve months after the storm, when educated guesses placed the New Orleans's city population at roughly half its pre-Katrina total. Results confirm that early returnees tended to be disproportionately white, elderly, better educated, and far less likely to have homes rendered uninhabitable by the disaster. These patterns begin to show how demographic processes triggered by the disaster exacerbated existing inequalities in the region, allowing more advantaged residents to return while leaving less advantaged residents dispersed across numerous destinations.
Evacuation and Return of Vietnamese New Orleanians Affected by Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina struck near New Orleans on August 29, 2005, and resulted in the collapse of the federal protective levee system and the flooding of most of the city. New Orleans East, where the main Vietnamese enclave is located, was especially hard hit. By chance, just weeks before this disaster occurred we collected with our colleagues a wide range of demographic and health data for a population-based sample of working age Vietnamese Americans living in New Orleans. One year after the storm, we re-interviewed everyone from the original sample who had returned to the area. This re-interview sample included about two-thirds of the original sample.Those who had returned by the one year point were more likely than those yet-to-return to have been employed before the storm, to have worked in the skilled sector of the economy, to have been married, and to have been a home owner. Many problems experienced during the immediate aftermath of the storm, such as crowded and unsanitary conditions, had been resolved by the one-year anniversary. Other problems remain, such as a continuing lack of information, lack of access to medical care, and fears of violent crime.
Risk Amid Recovery: Occupational Health and Safety of Latino Day Laborers in the Aftermath of the Gulf Coast Hurricanes
After Katrina, the Bush administration suspended Department of Labor workplace regulations throughout the Gulf, a move consistent with their general emphasis on voluntary workplace protection programs rather than government oversight. This approach left many workers in hurricane reconstruction jobs unprotected, especially Latino immigrant day laborers who, facing language barriers and legal constraints, were least able to negotiate workplace safety or other labor conditions. Fifty-three immigrant workers and 28 key informants from community, union, church, and relief organizations in Louisiana and Mississippi were interviewed at job hiring sites and relief organizations using an inductive, exploratory approach. In this multihazard and changing work environment with a new and fluctuating workforce, enforceable policies mandating worker protection and education were sorely lacking. Free market conditions, driven by incentives to work as fast as possible, and the preponderance of unregulated small contractors and individual home owners as employers contributed to the unsafe environment. Although workers and home owners attempted to take precautions, they usually lacked adequate education about hazards, access to protective equipment, and training in its proper use. However, the labor conditions during the hurricane recovery in the Gulf Coast are likely to be duplicated throughout the country in workplaces employing Latino day laborers unless workers' health is given greater priority by regulatory agencies.
Childhood Development and Access to Nature: A New Direction for Environmental Inequality Research
Although environmental inequality researchers have increased our understanding of race- and class-based environmental inequality in many important ways, few environmental inequality studies ask whether children are disproportionately burdened by environmental pollution or whether poor and minority youth are less likely than their White and wealthier counterparts to spend time in green spaces and the natural world. This gap in the literature undermines the ability of researchers to fully understand and explain environmental inequality. To demonstrate the importance of filling this gap, the authors (a) highlight current research findings from the environmental health, environmental education, and environmental psychology literatures regarding the cognitive, emotional, and physical importance of childhood exposure to nature and (b) summarize the few existing studies that have examined class- and race-based inequalities in children's exposure to the natural world and industrial environmental hazards. The authors then suggest several avenues of research that would, if undertaken, significantly increase our understanding of youth-based environmental inequality. By synthesizing findings across multiple disciplines, the authors hope to convince environmental inequality researchers of the importance of investigating children's differential exposure to nature, green spaces, and industrial environmental hazards.
Environmental Inequality in Metropolitan America
This study compares the environmental hazard burden experienced by Blacks, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Whites in each of the 329 metropolitan areas in the continental United States, using toxicity-weighted air pollutant concentration data drawn from the Environmental Protection Agency's Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators project to determine whether and to what degree environmental inequality exists in each of these metropolitan areas. After demonstrating that environmental inequality outcomes vary widely across metropolitan areas and that each group in the analysis experiences a high pollution disadvantage in multiple metropolitan areas and a medium pollution disadvantage in many metropolitan areas, the authors test three hypotheses that make predictions about the role that residential segregation and racial income inequality play in producing environmental inequality. Using logistic regression models to test these hypotheses, the authors find that residential segregation and racial income inequality are relatively poor predictors of environmental inequality outcomes, that residential segregation can increase and decrease racial/ethnic group proximity to environmental hazards, and that the roles income inequality and residential segregation play in producing environmental inequality vary from one racial/ethnic group to another.