Exploring the Virtue Framework: Environmental Labels, Clean Clothes, and Green Energy Capitalism

Abstract

This chapter is the most extensive chapter in the book. It uses the presented framework of virtue critique to examine the role of environmental labels in green marketing and explore how green rhetoric is used in the marketing of clothes, as well as within the Energy Sector. Themes developed include standardized forms for sustainability communication, communicative efficacy, moral legitimacy, temporality, transparency, and the value of rhetorical spaces for prudent corporate communication on complex matters.

9.1 Putting the Framework to Use

In this chapter, we start putting the framework to use. Applying the framework in more specific discussions provides a way of testing it out, to see how it works as an analytical tool. The discussions further illustrate how we think the framework can be utilized in rhetorical analysis of marketing. We will focus on three different themes. One is a particular kind of sign, a marking of marketing, namely that of environmental labels. The other two are branches of industry, namely clothing and energy. To us, it seems that these three themes provide interesting and illustrative examples. They are also highly topical in the current discussions on sustainability issues and green marketing. Beyond illustrating the applicability of the virtue approach, the discussions will also indicate particular questions, empirical areas, and theoretical dimensions that would benefit from further scholarly inquiries, or from collaborative works between different actors, including scholars, civil society, public actors, and private enterprises.

9.2 Ecolabels: The Strategies and Struggles of Standardization

Ecolabels have become one of the most common ways of portraying products or companies as green. As indicated by Ecolabelindex, an organization dedicated to tracking ecolabels and maintaining a global directory of them, the number of such labels is ever growing. At the time of writing (the end of 2022) there are 456 different ecolabels in the directory. Ecolabels are standardized labeling systems for primarily food and consumer products. The labels are typically presented on product packaging as a small sign in the form of a standardized icon. The graphic designs of these icons are often colorized in green and/or blue and adorned with a leaf, a flower, or some other motif bearing the semblance of “nature”. Thus, they in a sense evoke it, “triggering ecological inferences subtly by activating implicit references to nature through nature imagery” (Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibáñez 2009; Parguel et al. 2015, on “executional greenwashing”). The icons are regularly accompanied by small print with the name of the label, which often makes mention of a branch of industry (e.g. “produce”, “bio grow”) and their field of relevance or origin (e.g. “global”, “Austrian”, “EU”). Due to the proliferation of ecolabels, such iconography is easily recognizable, and presumably, the reader will know what we are talking about. (In Sweden, it seems almost impossible to go grocery shopping without encountering a bunch of ecolabels, and anyone interested in concrete examples can visit the website of the aforementioned index.)

Ecolabels are part of a wider class of “environmental labels”. There are different categories within this overarching category, which also includes one-sided information about products, that is, labels created and administered by the product’s manufacturers, importers, or distributors themselves, provided that the symbolic means used can be meaningfully analyzed as a label.¹ The subcategory of “ecolabels”, however, in the sense of the word used here, is a particular form of environmental label, which bears the significance of being a product of third-party certification processes. Proper ecolabels are designed to be independent from the producers, in a way intended to secure their objective and trustworthy character.

Environmental labeling practices seem to be inspired by the success of labels regarding quality and product safety. They started out as a marketing instrument, but in time various labels have developed that are now accepted as a governance instrument, or even an instrument of public policy (e.g. Iraldo et al. 2020). The more specific practice of ecolabeling seems to have its origin in the work of NGOs, but ecolabels were soon adopted by governments. The German Federal Government was an early adopter, with its “Blaue Engel” label originating in 1978, soon followed by others, like the “Nordic Swan” from 1989 (Prieto-Sandoval et al. 2020 provide a brief overview). Ecolabels now range from private initiatives to semi-official and even official transnational labels, such as the EU Ecolabel, “the official European Union voluntary label for environmental excellence”—nicknamed the “EU Flower” due to its genre typical iconography.

Having noted the broader category of environmental labels, we will here focus primarily on ecolabels, using the EU Ecolabel, as well as other labels, as examples to illustrate how the virtue framework can be put to use and to point out some of the strengths and weaknesses of ecolabeling practices.² Ecolabels are of particular interest from a virtue perspective, for a number of different reasons. It has been said (by Galarraga Gallastegui 2002) that ecolabels are about furthering two main objectives:

• 1. to provide consumers with more information about the environmental effects of their consumption, generating a change toward more environmentally friendly consumption patterns, and

• 2. to encourage producers, governments, and other agents to increase the environmental standards of products/services.

In relation to the first objective,³ ecolabels constitute a paradigmatic type of green promise, a type that is characterized not only by its substantive objectives, but also by its stereotypical form, both visually and in terms of the argumentative logic behind it. These characteristics are a large part of the reason why ecolabels are a prime candidate for virtue studies.

Further, the voluntary character of ecolabel practices provides much room for rhetorical sophistication and marketing maneuvering. Legally speaking, the use of existing ecolabels is generally governed by contractual regimes, that is, arrangements that are voluntary both as to content and as to whether or not one wants to submit to the regime by accepting the contractual provisions. As a matter of public law the construction and use of ecolabels will largely be considered a matter of freedom of speech, and thus enjoy constitutional protection in a way posing particular demands on regulating their uses (see Chap. 7).

Further still, the way that arguments using ecolabels signal a third-party certification, makes the arguments prototypically high-risk cases of the “imaginary friends” type of greenwashing sin, as indeed is illustrated by the fact that there are numerous such examples.⁴

Generally then, ecolabels have both pros and cons, their risks and their rewards. Some of their rhetorical effects are not necessarily by design, in the sense of being intended. They do however follow from the way ecolabels are designed, as they are entailed by the formal characteristics of the labels.

Ecolabels are a standardized form of sustainability measurement, intended to make it easy to take environmental and other sustainability issues into account in different transactions. As signifiers of measurement, some ecolabels will quantify emissions, pollution, or energy consumption by way of scoring indexes (e.g. “Energy Class A”) or units of measurement (“20 kg CO2 eqv. per unit”). Others will assert compliance with a set of practices (“Best Aquaculture Practices”) or minimum requirements for sustainability or reduction of harm to the environment (“Dolphin Friendly”, “Carbon Reduction”).⁵ Others still will inform consumers about the effects on the environment of the production, consumption, and waste phases of the product or service consumed (“Life cycle approved!”). As this implies, the concrete standards used vary, and the set of criteria will sometimes overlap (e.g. Cetik 2011).

The basic significance of an ecolabel is to signify compliance with a standard secured by evaluation through a certification process. It is not only the standards that vary. So do the requirements for certification, as well as the schemes for testing. However, for proper ecolabels there is normally some verification process, commonly referred to as a “certification”, through which an actor seeking approval must show that their practices are in compliance with some set of criteria. By passing (and paying for) this process, as well as any continued monitoring, the actor earns the right to sell its products as certified, and to adorn them with the ecolabel.

For the corporations applying ecolabels to their products, the appeal often lies in how this works to construct the products as attractive, and by extension the company as an attractive transactional counterparty. Thus, the adoption of a label is often based on the notion that sporting an ecolabel can be a persuasive selling argument, at the very least in relation to a niche, but growing, market segment of environmentally conscious consumers (e.g. Karlsson and Dolnicar 2016; Elamin and de Córdoba 2020). Using an established ecolabel will also be a way of benefitting from the previous marketing efforts of both the certifying body and other actors using the same label (Iraldo and Barberio 2017).

In addition to the rhetorical construction of a product or corporate ethos, ecolabels have other, albeit connected, functions. As already implied, the use of voluntary sustainability standards such as ecolabels can be seen as a market-driven form of governance (UNCTAD 2021; van der Ven et al. 2018; cf. Zsolt 2016).⁶ This function hinges on the standards used being adequately designed, and that the certification process, as well as any further monitoring and compliance work, is robust enough to be an effective means of encouraging the behavior strived for. The standards will need to be designed in a way promoting goals that are not only adequately and reliably measurable, but also relevant (the virtue of relevance). Constructing optimal standards is indeed one of the main challenges when developing ecolabeling schemes, demanding both natural and social scientific perspectives. The criteria will also need to be adjusted over time, in a way that continually balances between on the one hand the pragmatics of what is economically feasible and on the other hand the ideal of what is desirable from a sustainability perspective and of keeping up with what is scientifically possible. As so often, one needs to strike a balance between what would be ideal and what is realistic. This is illustrated by the fact that the governance function of the standards will often be to stimulate and enforce a type of “best practice”, and such practices will inevitably both evolve and be the object of critical discussion.

While acknowledging the importance of developing adequate and reliable standards, and the difficulties inherent in weighing the different interests against each other, here, we focus on ecolabels as rhetoric.

The rhetoric of ecolabels is founded on a number of elements, which are combined in a specific way. An aspect that is clearly of interest for a rhetorical study of green marketing is how ecolabels work as signs, and arguments. Ecolabels have been called “essential sources of information regarding products’ features” (Hameed and Waris 2018). This is however somewhat misleading, as what is signified is often only indirectly about the product as such. Ecolabeling means that a product, through a sign, borrows the credibility of an external source, namely the certifying third party, which is why an argument using an ecolabel is a prototypically high-risk case of becoming an “imaginary friends” type of greenwashing sin.

An interesting example of a problematic “ecolabel” is found in the Sustainable Brand Index (SBI), “Europe’s largest independent brand study focused on sustainability”, which ranks brands based on how they “are perceived in terms of sustainability by their important stakeholders” (SBI 2022). The rankings are differentiated by industry (e.g. Clothes & Fashion; Electricity & Heating; Fuel), and high-ranking companies are deemed “Industry Winners” and awarded a badge reminiscent of an ecolabel. The badge is designed as a circular icon, with the SBI logotype—a collection of green circles giving the impression of a three-dimensional globe—at the center, and the words “INDUSTRY WINNER 2020” (or whatever year it concerns) making a half circle atop the centered globe, enveloping it, and the words “Sustainable Brand Index” at the bottom.

The index winners can then make mention of their “Wins” in their own later marketing. Swedish petroleum and biofuel company Preem provides an example. The company has made frequent use of the “Industry Winner” award in their marketing. Among other things, Preem has touted it in an “Awards” section on its website’s “Sustainability” section—which also boasts how Preem was hailed as “Sweden’s Greenest Brand” (Swe: “Sveriges grönaste varumärke”) in 2020. Anyone surprised by a petroleum company being the greenest brand in Sweden can click their way further and soon conclude that it was the greenest brand in the “Fuel” category. This makes the victory less surprising, and the emphasizing of the thus relatively small victory clearly reminiscent of the “Best in Class” Sign of Greenwashing. (“Declaring you are slightly greener than the rest, even if the rest are pretty terrible.”)

In 2021, Preem lost their standing as the Swedish Industry winner to the competitive petroleum company OKQ8. The loss was likely due to a large amount of negative press coverage reporting on the planned, but publicly criticized and ultimately scrapped, or at least extensively revamped, expansion of the company’s refinery Preemraff, outside of the Swedish coastal town Lysekil. As this implies, the loss reflected a drop in brand image. This is central to how the SB-index works. Indeed, it is by design, as the indexed measurements are not directly about sustainability. Rather, the index is about how a brand is perceived, by important stakeholders (such as customers). In other words, the index is at best an indirect way of measuring sustainability, as what the winners are rewarded for is effectively their own previous successful PR-work in the sustainability area.

Hence, touting the SBI reward as if it were a certificate of genuine sustainability can be misleading, in much the same way as the “Worshiping False Labels” Greenwashing sin. It is important to note that the problem is not with the index itself. The problem is in how displaying it can be misleading, in signifying some form of oversight or surveillance that the awarding organization does not provide. Consumers, in general, cannot be expected to be knowledgeable about the low level of actual sustainability surveillance, and thus they are likely to be misled by marketing which uses the SBI award as a promotion without further explanation. In other words, most consumers are likely to interpret it as a token of sustainability. However, the display of the award would be problematic even if targeted customers were in fact aware of the details and inner workings of the SBI. As an argument, touting the award would then work as an appeal to a popular notion or evaluation. Potential customers would be told that, according to a marketing survey, most people find the brand to be the most sustainable (or least unsustainable), and be encouraged to act on this popular notion, rather than on any notions of one’s own. The problem thus borders on the Sin of “No Proof”. In effect, touting the award encourages an unreflective and dependent judgment, tantamount to the argumentum ad populum commonly referred to as the “bandwagon fallacy”.

This is but one example of how labels signaling third-party certifications can be misleading. It is far from the worst example. It is however a symptom of a wider complex of problems, which are all in and of themselves complicated, and which need to be addressed in several different ways, on different levels. Greenwashing criticism no doubt has a role to play here, if nothing else than to point out the problems and to urge actors to act more virtuously.

However, there is no need for universal criticism or calls for the scrapping of ecolabels (cf. Zsolt 2016). Ecolabels and voluntary sustainability standards are a reflection of how, in complex systems, there is always an interest in standardization. Indeed, the interest in having such structures could very well be stated as one of the main rationales for having a legal order in society: By establishing and upholding laws, we can create a framework for individuals and communities to interact with each other in a predictable manner, promoting stability and order in our society. A legal order could thus be described as, among other things, a powerful tool of standardization, with rules guiding behavior, and courts and procedures enforcing the standards found legitimate and appropriate. In ecolabeling schemes, it is the process of certification by autonomous third parties that provides the means of securing, or even enforcing, the standardization. While the procedural mechanisms differ, the goals overlap, as in both the ecolabel schemes, and the law, the procedures reflect an attempt to manage complexity by supplying the predictability of formal structures.⁷

In fact, the effectiveness inherent in the process of standardization is a large part of the explanation for the proliferation of ecolabels. Once established, ecolabels are manageable in application and use. This furthers their continued popularity, which in turn reinforces their recognizability. And, in being easily recognizable, they become even more effective as signifiers. Obviously, there are openings for abusive practices, but the use of ecolabels as condensed arguments can provide constructive aid in climate transition. Even with a traditional Aristotelian approach, reproducing conventional ideas about the amorality of rhetoric (see Chap. 4, Sect. 4.3), one could argue that ecolabels are neither evil nor good—they are mere tools, which can be used for various purposes. We would however push the argument further. Indeed, and this fully mirrors the greenwashing criticism provided as illustration above, we would argue that properly applied, ecolabel practices can correspond to several of the virtues of green marketing.

Most obvious is the “Use of authentic and reliable external authorities”. The use of ecolabels could be seen as an outsourcing of the argumentative work of green marketing, both for the companies and for consumers. From the corporate speaker perspective, it is the label which “does the argumentative work”, in the sense of persuasion, as a result of a cultivated audience perception of what the label signifies. From the corresponding consumer audience perspective, ecolabels aid argumentation in the sense of deliberation, by relieving consumers of the workload inherent in making independent evaluations of corporate green promises. Consumers are encouraged to “trust the label”, in the sense of seeing it as adequate proof both that the company fulfills what is necessary to be allowed to use the ecolabel and that those requirements are relevant. Above, in our discussion of the SBI label, we mentioned the risk of falling prey to the bandwagon fallacy when trusting an ecolabel. That criticism was related to a specific argumentum ad populum variant of the ecolabel-as-argument. The ecolabel in question constituted an argument, but the backing for the argument was merely that “stakeholders tend to think” that this company is relatively sustainable.

The widespread idea that arguments from authority are illegitimate might be a good starting point for philosophical skeptics, but in practical everyday life reliance upon experts and other authorities are central to how society works. Such reliance can also be rational. It is neither reasonable nor even possible to make independent decisions in a self-informed manner in all areas. Constantly disregarding expert knowledge or even the authority of conventional wisdom can indeed be unreasonable. Ecolabels will work as a sort of argument from authority, in the sense that the label is dependent on the credibility of the certifying authority, but this authority element does not mean that ecolabels are not to be trusted, or that the ecolabel-as-argument should be considered necessarily problematic. It does however mean that there is a need for balancing. If the use of ecolabels is to continue to grow (which seems a likely development), scholars and critics must balance the rhetorical study of the green marketing of certain companies (which seems like the dominant approach in contemporary rhetorical scholarship on the role of rhetoric in market economy), with the study of the rhetoric of the labels. The latter must be combined with interdisciplinary and constructively critical assessments of the certification and monitoring practices associated therewith. In our view, the virtue framework can be put to use in these types of studies. In other words, one could use the framework to investigate what rhetorical virtues (could) characterize specific ecolabels. The framework can also support the critical discussion of how green marketing practices and the communicative efforts of certain labels are intertwined.

Ecolabels can be virtuous in other ways too, beyond enabling companies to appeal to authentic and relevant external authorities. A good label, clearly visible and with clear information, could also fulfill the virtues of precision and specificity, as it signifies compliance with necessary standards. Ideally, the standards will ensure that parties are talking about the same things, as this is one of the main rationales of standard setting. They should also be highly developed, detailed, scientifically analyzed, and if possible tailored to correspond to measurable criteria so that the arguments they entail are verifiable. If such criteria are met, arguments performed by using ecolabels can arguably be both precise and specific.

It is the third of the linguistic virtues that poses the greatest challenge, as the ecolabel format makes the trait of transparency difficult to achieve. Scientifically speaking, the sustainability issues involved are generally too complicated to be fully communicated through a simple label. However, it is not the point of an ecolabel to communicate the scientific issues involved in a full, honest, and straightforward way, in and of itself. Instead, it will communicate by referential tactics. That is, by references of the “further reading” variety, pointing to other places where one can find information useful for evaluating the promises entailed by adorning a product with an ecolabel. As the discussion this far implies, these tactics will also gain credibility from the ethos of the certifying body. In addition to referential tactics and the persuasiveness of ethos, the argumentative work of ecolabels will depend on public awareness, and indeed high public awareness is almost inherently a goal of ecolabeling schemes. (There is for instance research that hints that the “added value” of e.g. the EU Ecolabel is its potential to “close the information gap” within the market, by providing a tool for showcasing eco-innovation efforts, but that a lack of awareness of the label on the party of consumers in some sectors/countries is one of the main barriers against more widespread adoption; Iraldo and Barberio 2017.) Indeed, most ecolabels can be analyzed as self-contained brands and, as brands, their value depends on the recognizability and goodwill associated with them, or quantitatively speaking, on how often a consumer will choose a certain brand over other competitive brands.⁸

It is likely that ecolabels will continue to fulfill a central role in green marketing, and legitimacy management, as their widespread use is reasonable in light of the comfortability of their use, their fashionable character (becoming ever more trendy), and the effectiveness gained by their ever increasing familiarity to consumers. In fact, we find ourselves in something of a virtuous circle where ecolabels potentially become more effective the more they are used. Their form means that even a quick glance can, almost subliminally, convey the message of sustainability. They work as convenient shorthands for complex substantial arguments. However, for this shorthand to be transparent, as green marketing conveying substantial sustainability information, the argumentative ecology in which they perform their work needs to contain also pedagogical performances. In terms of the classical trichotomy of movere, docere, delectare, speakers wishing to move must first teach, in order for the ecolabels to work as conveyors of meaningful information about what the ecolabels actually entail, as promises of sustainability.

Summing up, we can see that the position that ecolabels have gained means that they are an interesting object for green marketing virtue studies. We have already discussed the perhaps most obviously implicated virtues, i.e. on the one hand the linguistic virtues (especially transparency), and on the other the virtue of using authentic and reliable external authorities. The latter of these two ought seemingly, given how ecolabeling schemes are designed and intended, to be considered the primary virtue of ecolabeling schemes. As regards the other virtues, for reasons of space, we will settle with some brief comments on the virtues of selection and deflection, which we discuss more extensively in relation to the clothing industry in the next section.

As long as the schemes are voluntary, it is the producers who control whether or not they want to apply an ecolabel to its products. It seems obvious that choosing to apply a label is in itself a rhetorical choice, regarding both what to highlight (the traits signaled by a specific label) and what to suppress (other traits not highlighted). This raises many complicated issues, which vary greatly between different ecolabels. In fact, this very variation reflects how each label is selective in focusing on specific traits, while simultaneously deflecting other traits. A marketer will seldom only have the choice of including one particular label or not. Rather the marketer will face a choice between different labels (e.g. on the one hand the Nordic swan, and on the other the EU Ecolabel) that either compete or can be combined. As ecolabels can be interpreted as general promises of sustainability, virtue requires some level of transparency with what is actually signified, and this transparency is inextricably tied to issues of selection and deflection. The only way they can be evaluated is by taking account of the principle of situationality. The evaluation needs to center on the significance of a particular ecolabel use, in a particular industry context. Further, the evaluation needs to heed the principle of multiple audiences. We must account for the relevant audience in that market. However, as evaluators, we should also account for a supervisory specialist audience, and consider the quality of the third-party authority constituted by the organization responsible for the certification process, as well as an external audience, for example, officials or scholars, that can critically scrutinize ecolabel usages.

In conclusion, the external authorities involved in ecolabeling schemes merit attention. The organizations administering the certifications, and monitoring the use of ecolabels, will have a very important role in securing the virtue of ecolabel practices. The organizations will for most practical purposes have both oversight and control over issues of what evidence is required for actors to be allowed to (continue to) use a label. They will work to control the public perception of the label, gaining and maintaining legitimacy for it. They will have power over the selection or deflection of what issues are raised, and what is promised by a label. As long as the schemes are voluntary, it is the producers who control whether or not they want to use an ecolabel, but the choice they are given is very much of the “take it or leave it” kind, as they will need to either buy into the whole scheme as such or abstain. Given their importance, the ecolabeling agencies, the standards used, the inner workings of specific labels, and organizations, all merit attention and are worthwhile objects of further research. Here, we have mainly wanted to point out some possible avenues of such research, which we hope that other researchers will join us in performing and which we would call for, considering that ecolabel usage will in all likelihood not only endure, but indeed develop and multiply.

9.3 Clean Clothes, Circular Economy, and the Speed of Fashion

Without attempting to present a full analysis of the green marketing of any specific company, or of the industry as a whole, let us take a look at the clothing industry. We will map some common arguments made by clothing companies in their green marketing and look at some of the tensions raised by their rhetoric. As our source material, we will primarily use commercial websites, commonly providing more elaborate green marketing arguments than the catchy slogans provided in radio, television, or newspaper advertisements. Our discussion will further illustrate how the virtue framework can be put to use. Perhaps it can also inspire more in-depth studies of certain arguments or actors within the clothing sector.

A central dilemma for clothing companies is how to negotiate public understanding of the companies’ various motives. A significant part of the public seems to be of the impression that the clothing industry in general—and fast fashion in particular—is not only environmentally unsustainable, but also an arena for the exploitation of workers and eco-systems in the Global South. This trend in public opinion has led to a need for clothing companies to prove their sustainability and demonstrate their ethical practices, as a way of gaining or maintaining legitimacy (see, generally, e.g. Binet et al. 2018). Still, any idea to implement a blanket ban on new clothes would inevitably be considered both unrealistic and impractical, or perhaps just plain dumb, as clothing companies can be considered to fulfill a basic, taken-for-granted human need. Companies within the clothing sector thus have a certain cognitive legitimacy, and gain pragmatic legitimacy.⁹ Especially when they make products that are also, for whatever reason, appealing to their consumer base, people will want to accept clothing companies as legitimate.

It seems, then, that moral legitimacy is the real crux of the matter. From a strategic (managerial) perspective, the question arises whether companies should bring the attention of the consumer to moral issues, or if it would be more profitable just to ignore the matter, in the sense of not explicitly addressing it. As previously discussed, however, the institution of sustainability is strengthened over time, and this creates an increasing demand for moral legitimation efforts regarding sustainability issues.

In essence, ignoring the problem will not make it go away. Green marketing is an answer to this legitimacy crisis, as it addresses the call for moral legitimation. The challenge for companies within this industry is to substantiate that their organization not only strives to maximize profits, but also contributes to the common good. Against the backdrop of all the well-known problems in the clothing industry (e.g. Niinimäki et al. 2020), they must attempt to persuade consumers that consuming their products can be considered, at least relatively, sustainable.

Clothing companies employ various strategies to negotiate the tensions between profitable behavior and moral motives, and between capitalistic exploitation and sustainable living. One common strategy to strengthen moral legitimacy and mitigate the capitalistic motives of a business enterprise is to donate money to charities and various environmental causes. Both the model for donations and how the amounts are settled vary. Some actors merely encourage their customers to donate by offering to “round the price up” or donate a specific amount to a particular organization if the customer checks a box while placing an online order. In such cases, the companies work as facilitators. They provide charitable organizations with more exposure and encourage others to donate, rather than donating anything themselves. Such models provide the companies with a relatively cheap way of gaining legitimacy by presenting the companies as facilitators of charity. In addition, they serve customers by providing a convenient way to make donations, which may help to ease their consciences. The latter is particularly interesting in relation to an increased awareness of the negative effects of consumption. Research suggests that people often tend to reason about moral deeds as if it were accounting, where a good deed balances a negative deed (Wolrath Söderberg and Wormbs 2022; cf. Gorissen and Weijters 2016; Sörqvist and Langeborg 2019). By offering the customers a way to donate when consuming, the companies could be seen as providing a mechanism for this form of moral accounting. However, some customers may also feel guilty, when declining the opportunity to donate, and this may negatively impact the customer relationship. Still, when such strategies are successful, they entail a symbiotic (or mutually parasitic) relationship; the organizations get donations, while the companies get to construct themselves as co-contributors to the organizations’ causes, thus borrowing legitimacy not only from the institution of charity but also from the specific organizations with which they partner.

Another interesting model is “1% for the planet” (onepercentfortheplanet.org). The model is both chosen and championed by a network of businesses and individuals who pledge to donate 1% of their annual sales or individual salaries to environmental causes. The network presents itself as a movement, and by joining the movement, you can use their icon as a third-party certificate (reminiscent of the ecolabels discussed in the previous section). In presenting the model, its proponents argue that it counteracts the risk of greenwashing inherent in pledges of monetary donations without external control or benchmarks. In donating to non-profit organizations, the companies do make a real contribution. However, a cynical position in relation to this practice, as a form of sustainability work, would be that the “third-party certificate” in these cases is simply a bought token. The model provides a way of rhetorically compensating for negative effects, without necessarily doing the work or actually changing any unsustainable practices one engages in.

Beyond donating money in exchange for goodwill, some companies position themselves morally by constructing themselves as being a different type of organization or having a special structure of ownership. An especially topical example is found in the new structure of ownership of the high-profile clothing company Patagonia. The company specializes in outdoor equipment and has very consciously cultivated its environmental ethos for decades, leading to it being characterized as “Deep Green” (Zint and Frederick 2001), in the sense of having a particularly strong green ethos. In line with this ethos, in 2022, its owner announced that ownership of the whole company (at the time valued at circa 3 billion USD, with an expected revenue of another 100 million USD/year) was to be transferred to a foundation dedicated to fighting climate change. The move was symbolized by the adoption of a new slogan: “Earth is now our only shareholder.” This very recent development is obviously both high profile and high stakes, and it will be interesting to see how it will play out in the years to come.

There are of course more mundane approaches. For instance, more traditional corporate storytelling is frequently performed in ways that emphasize the founders’ or the employees’ passion for sustainability. Often this message is accompanied by stories about how they enjoy spending time outdoors, perhaps presented with photos of them smiling while doing so, against a beautiful backdrop of perhaps a mountain range, an autumn forest, or a streaming water. Infallibly this is paired with a sort of outdoorsy, hipsteresque aesthetic, and perhaps a cute dog in someone’s lap. You get the picture. There are indeed many examples of how companies can rhetorically portray themselves as small-scale, locally-sourced, or communally-owned enterprises, in ways that can both allude to the “big business bad” trope (which finds an especially crisp expression in “Big Tobacco”, “Big Oil”, etc.) and employ the inverse trope of “small business good”, often involving more or less subtle ways of portraying a closeness, to nature, to local communities, or to each other (e.g. as “family”).

Turning to our list of green marketing virtues, the ethics of selections and deflection come to the fore. Both the global clothing industry and the modern-day consumption of clothing have complex and problematic aspects. A virtuous practice of green marketing must acknowledge this complexity and present a balanced disclosure of relevant aspects in relation to, for example, company practices, product qualities, and production processes, for example, by taking a product’s entire life cycle into account. Further, it would be virtuous to present a balanced account of corporate responsibilities in relation to economic, environmental, and social issues, and to address how the company handles these responsibilities.

To exemplify, we can look at Gneis, a relatively small Swedish brand and web store for children’s outdoor clothes. (Without having performed any real quantitative analysis to substantiate this claim, it seems clear to us that outdoor products invite a particularly generous measure of green marketing.) Gneis’ website explicitly describes four aspects of its sustainability work:

• 1. design and product development,

• 2. material,

• 3. production and suppliers, and

• 4. sales and transportation.

Allowing ourselves an initial evaluative statement, this is clearly an ambitious approach, signaling acknowledgment of the inevitable complexity of sustainability work.

Looking closer at their argument within each subcategory, we find that their arguments in relation to design do not present specific, black-and-white, binding promises. Rather, they present a sort of philosophy of priorities and choices, such as prioritizing quality in the sense of making clothes that last; prioritizing function to make clothes that are used, and choosing colors that have a timeless and gender-neutral appeal to make it easier to pass them on from one child to another. Their section on material is much more concrete and specific, and to some extent detail-oriented, mentioning certificates used for certain materials, specific chemicals not used, and other input-choices, such as avoiding unnecessary use of packaging, hangtags, and care labels (with washing advice etc.). As regards production and transport, the discussions are also rather specific, naming the countries used, the modes of transport, as well as their reasoning regarding logistical choices. No external authority for control of factories is mentioned, however, and several claims are not binding promises, or at least not clear about what the company actually binds itself to. For example, it claims to “avoid air freight as much as possible” (emphasis added). As previously discussed, there is a dialectic between specific and general which is inherent in the linguistic virtues of specificity and preciseness. The example illustrates how this dialectic is highly relevant for the analysis of green claims. It also indicates the importance of authentic and reliable external sources and supporting evidence (virtues 9 and 10).

Gneis’ main approach for substantiating their green ethos seems however to be to provide transparency as regards their reasoning and choices, as well as to substantiate that they have deep knowledge about sustainability through their attention to details. Their key virtue, the one they emphasize the most, is thus prudence, or phronesis, which is manifested by their reasoning and maneuvering in relation to issues that they admit are complicated. A critical comment could be that, as already mentioned, some statements lack specificity. Others lack backing. As a result, the company’s ability to persuade depends on trust, and the website presents the small-scale vibe of the company in a way that seems designed to foster the kind of trust held in more intimate interpersonal relationships, rather than in the more transactional exchange relationships between corporations and consumers. This also seems to align with some contemporary marketing theories (cf. e.g. Bagozzi 1975; Grönroos 1994; Vargo and Lusch 2011).

An additional, but highly emphasized, aspect of Gneis’ website is how it urges customers to maximize the use of each garment. This call to action is perhaps the very core of Gneis’ green marketing; the company promises to work actively with sustainability in production, but most of all it promises to make clothes that last. Gneis’ invites the customer to a collaboration of sorts, an “Us”-affirming alliance, creating a union where the two actors constituting the “We” are positioned as a collaborative counterforce to the morally-objectionable practices of fast fashion.

It is interesting to compare Gneis’ website to that of H&M, one of the absolute giants of the global fashion industry. At the time of writing this analysis, the H&M brand website did not highlight or push any sustainability issues or sustainability work on their homepage (i.e. the first page one arrives at).¹⁰ Thus, compared to Gneis, H&M to a larger extent chooses not to highlight the aforementioned legitimacy problems of the clothing industry. They do, however, have the link “Sustainability” in their main menu, providing information for those that bother to enquire further. Following that link, one lands on a page with a highlighted section titled: “For the love of craft”, claiming that “teaching women to weave can bring equality to the villages of India”. This segment of the sustainability page is not permanent, viewed two weeks later,¹¹ it is moved down and the top segment instead highlights the topic “Dressing for the metaverse: Spectacular, out-of-this-dimension pieces for physical and virtual worlds”, a story with a completely different feel to it. Instead of appealing to the “real” or “genuine” character of handicraft in rural India, this segment (with an unclear relation to sustainability) evokes a sort of science fiction feeling and pushes the need for design and clothing in virtual reality. Below this highlighted section, H&M presents its sustainability work under a number of headings, with connected subpages. Namely, they include the following: (a) Let’s change, (b) Let’s innovate, (c) Let’s be fair, (d) Let’s be for all, (e) Let’s be transparent, (f) Let’s clean up, (g) Let’s close the loop, (h) Take Care, and (i) Praise from others. All of these headings, taken together, and combined with the highlighted sections, signal a broad approach to sustainability, including social justice, gender equality, and diversity as well as environmental sustainability.

In relation to the virtue framework, one could view this sustainability page as an attempt to provide a balanced account of sustainability work, but so far without clear substance. Regarding environmental sustainability, H&M emphasizes that they “like” their clothes “toxic-free” and that the trends of recycling and repairing are worth following. Note however that no substance in terms of concrete green promises is presented. Someone more cynical than the present authors might be inclined to say that the company manages to talk a lot, without saying much. The gist of the rhetoric in these headlines and their respective subpages is to avoid making promises about the present, but instead to signal that H&M is taking or will take part in the transformation of the industry and that they want to invite their consumers to be a part of that journey. Apparently, it is not time to be sustainable right now, but according to H&M it is rather “time to change”. A key ethos argument is that “change is at [their] core”. The argument attempts to turn their problematic identity, as a fast fashion company, into a virtuous quality: in being fast, they are used to change, and to not only following trends but indeed to setting them, leading the way.

While H&M does not say this explicitly, it is not that far removed from claiming to lead a sustainable change or positioning oneself as leading the climate transition. However, their green promises have a lofty nature, as well as a rather sneaky temporality, where they are regularly placed in the future. While the sustainability rhetoric has a grandiosity to it, it lacks in both substantial content and actual commitment. This is perhaps best illustrated by quoting their promise “to ourselves”: The promise is not presented as a promise to their consumers, or stakeholders, but indeed as a promise from the company to “themselves”—which later can of course release the promisor from the promise. This makes abundantly clear that the promise has all the binding characteristics of, say, a New Year’s resolution. In their own words:

Let’s face it. While we love fashion, it has a huge impact on the environment. The industry has to change and someone has to take the lead.

So, let’s make that us.

Let’s see how much more efficiently we can collect and recycle unwanted clothes on a global scale.

Let’s find out how little waste we can create.

Let’s remove all unnecessary plastic. Let’s take away any hazardous chemicals. Let’s accelerate innovation of sustainable materials.

Let’s not settle for being one of the largest buyers of organic cotton in the world; let’s make sure all our cotton is kinder to the planet.

Let’s take care of our fashion favorites by repairing and remaking.

Let’s close the loop on fashion.

Let’s keep working for fair jobs and push the boundaries on transparency in the fashion world.

Also, let’s do what we can so that future world shapers feel good about themselves and more tolerant toward others. Let’s make everyone feel included, regardless of background, gender, religion, age, abilities, sexual orientation, style or size.

Let’s make fashion sustainable and sustainability fashionable. Let’s write a new promise when these boxes are ticked.

Let’s change fashion.

Of course, this sub-genre of corporate rhetoric is not an odd bird or weird invention, unique to H&M. It is common corporate practice to define the organization by presenting its vision, value base, or policies in these kinds of lofty statements, and to signify how those values and principles guide the corporation’s actions and decisions. Still, in terms of green promises, and employing a judicial perspective—taking inventory of how to make green promises actually matter (cf. Mossberg 2023)—the reliance on these kinds of speech acts, tailored to be vague and therefore not binding, is problematic. While they can have effects on the expectations of the audience, and the employees, potentially leading a company toward conforming their walk to their talk (cf. Chap. 3, Sect. 3.2), the vagueness and the constantly-postponed fulfillment of any clear-cut goals is still a problem.

In fact, the vagueness and lack of precision saturate so much of the H&M website’s rhetoric that it is difficult to identify the virtuous aspects of the green marketing there performed. Looking further at the “Let’s innovate” page and then clicking one’s way to the “Our more sustainable materials” page, one gets the feeling of exploring a Matryoshka doll, moving from one page to the next, delving ever deeper into the stratified depths of green rhetoric of one of the world’s larger fast fashion companies, in a search for specific, binding statements. It is a search that one in time starts to fret might be in vain, as in lieu of more precise, verifiable promises H&M will often proclaim things like how they are “on a journey toward only using recycled or other more sustainable materials by 2030”. The factual promise regarding materials on this page is thus only to embark on some sort of adventurous travel, which may or may not reach the goal of becoming more sustainable eight years in the future. On a different page they discuss animal welfare, claiming that they “aim to only source animal-based materials from farms with good animal care, breeding and management” and that they’re “exploring ways to replace materials like wool, leather and down with more sustainable alternatives” (emphasis added). There are indeed more precise and sometimes measurable promises to be found on the website, but it deserves to be re-emphasized that a visitor browsing through the pages, going ever deeper down the rabbit hole, will mostly be met with lofty slogans and grandiose imagery, primarily signaling only that H&M—and by extension their consumers—are, in an underspecified way, part of an important transformation.

As mentioned, more precise statements can be found, in particular when surfing to the page presenting the sustainability report of the H&M Group. One such statement that stands out is that they claim to have “tripled” the share of recycled materials used in their garments, from 5.8% to 17.9% in a year (confirmed in H&M’s Annual & Sustainability Report 2021). To be clear, in this book, we do not make any qualitative inquiry into the question of whether or not H&M is a relatively sustainable company within the clothing industry. We only use the company as an example, focusing on its marketing efforts as a matter of rhetorical ontology, and perhaps most of all to illustrate that having a lot of pages and a lot of text and images on sustainability does not in itself constitute an example of virtuous green marketing or of transparency. Indeed, this reaffirms the classical wisdom that for all but aesthetic purposes, brevity with substance will always beat verbosity without. In fact, the vagueness and, the we-will-be-better-tomorrow approach, spread out on a lot of pages on the website, works against transparency, by effectively hiding the substance in the sheer amount of information. (Perhaps it is far-fetched, or just a reflection of pop-cultural preferences, but isn’t it kind of like when, in lawyer shows on TV, the Big Corp defendant bad guy will try to drown the protagonist plaintiff small firm attorneys by dumping an endless number of document boxes in their offices? Albeit with the possible difference that, typical to the genre, there will always be some gem of information hidden in those records.)

An interesting aspect, that becomes clear when looking at the sustainability rhetoric of H&M and comparing it to companies within the outdoor clothing industry with a high profile in terms of green marketing, is that H&M does not highlight quality. The company does not say that their clothes are physically durable or that they have timeless designs allowing for the transcendence of trends. Instead, the key term in their marketing is circularity. Now, of course, circularity is generally hailed as a key aspect of building a sustainable society and thus bears a measure of legitimacy. However, circularity is also a way of approaching sustainability challenges that does not necessitate questioning the fundamental business idea of companies like H&M, and indeed the very idea of fast fashion.

The problematic aspect of this is illustrated by H&M touting the “tripled” use of recycled material in their garments. Of course, the increase from 5.8 to 17.9% is significant. It is however far from a circular business model. And if you compare keeping a fast fashion consumption pattern, but with partially recycled material, to the benefits of a slow fashion business model with significantly lower consumption of clothes that last, which may well also include recycled materials, the framing of fast fashion as circular inevitably comes out as problematic. A preliminary judgment would be that H&M’s argument does not, despite the first impression provided by the many sections of the website, fulfill the virtue of a balanced account of relevant aspects. In selecting a focus on circularity, they deflect the inherent problems of fast fashion. In fact, their circularity goals could be seen as based on a misleading comparison, where their relative sustainability is the result of a comparison only with their own old self, or with other fast fashion companies that do not strive to “change”. This suggests a marketing vice-problematic of the “best in class” or “lesser of two evils” variety.

When we analyze their green marketing to capture their green ethos, we find that it is somewhat Janus-Faced. On the one hand, the rhetoric of H&M has clear similarities to certain aspects of the green rhetoric of oil companies. They emphasize lofty promises and focus more on being in movement toward sustainability, to be reached somewhere in a more-or-less distant future, than on any present conditions. On the other hand, one cannot dismiss aims such as to use 30% recycled material by 2025 as null; they are indeed factual, quantifiable, and at least in principle verifiable pledges. What is more, an economic argument could be made that comparing exclusive outdoor clothing companies and H&M is unfair. The high consumer price of the clothes of certain brands with a high profile regarding sustainability management risks making sustainable consumption a matter only for people with high income—a privilege for the rich. Arguably, sustainability efforts on cheap clothes should therefore be supported, despite not reaching the same high bar as the efforts of companies with a customer base that has more purchasing power. Further, the very real effects of the sustainability work of large multinational companies should not be neglected. While we can often, and should almost always, ask for more,¹² the sheer size of their operations can mean that the sum total effects of even small incremental increases in their sustainability efforts can still be considerable. Even small increases in the percentage of renewable material in the global clothing industry can be considered as steps in a more sustainable direction, and arguably, the goal will likely be reached in a series of consecutive steps, rather than in one great leap. However, we need to acknowledge that all consumption of new clothes has an impact on the environment. The incremental increases should thus be placed in the “becoming less bad” category, and regardless of ways of production, it is difficult to see how the achievement of such sustainability goals can ever be combined with growth in the textile industry as a whole.

To cut to the chase, as regards our discussion of H&M in relation to the green marketing virtues framework, we hope to have shown that this framework can be applied also to companies with a somewhat problematic use of green marketing, as well as a somewhat problematic business model. In doing so, we do to some extent repeat the patterns of greenwashing criticism. The repetition is however not complete, since the norm, the ideal, and the virtues highlighted by the framework, and thereby the constructive suggestions, are always present in the arguments made.

As mentioned, many of the clothing companies that prioritize green aspects in their marketing sell clothing fit for outdoor activities, or market their clothes as produced for wildlife experiences. The marketing efforts of these companies are interesting in many ways, perhaps especially in terms of discussing their target audience, as well as their constituted audience. It seems clear that their primary target audiences are consumers interested in nature and outdoor activities. That they also highlight sustainability and environmental responsibility could thereby be read as a way of adhering to the supposed values of this target audience. In describing the target audience as consisting of people interested in outdoor activities in the wild we must however avoid interpreting this too literally. Just as a 4×4 Jeep-style car can be sold to suburban families through a commercial depicting off-road driving, one can sell boots and winter jackets to an urban consumer with ads depicting mountain hiking. Still, there is something interesting in the fact that green marketing of clothing seems to correlate with an appeal to a positive evaluation of hiking, wildlife experiences, and nature-oriented outdoor activities in general. On the one hand, this exemplifies how green marketing can utilize the values of certain target groups to sell more sustainable clothing. On the other hand, it could be considered problematic if sustainable consumption becomes (or remains) a niche market. To support climate transition, for instance, we need a shift toward more sustainable consumption also in very urban market segments, indeed in all segments. Marketing aimed at people who love nature might perhaps include a risk of leading to dissociation, at least if green marketing becomes a sort of identity marketing, appealing to certain groups while alienating others. On the other hand, one could argue that an appreciative attitude toward nature is something of an icebreaker for sustainability concerns. If one accepts this premise, then the fact that corporations in their marketing promote a positive evaluation of nature can also function as a form of indirect climate transition rhetoric that highlights what we as a society—and as individuals in that society—should value.

Returning to Patagonia, we can see that the platform of being an outdoor clothing company can also be used to ask more general questions regarding consumption. We do, for example, have their much discussed “Don’t buy this jacket” ad, signaling an awareness of the fact that they, despite their ambitious efforts as regards sustainability, cannot erase the fact that consumption has a negative environmental impact. That ad, as well as the conflicting goals evident in H&M’s marketing, both illustrate that the clothing industry has fundamental questions that it needs to address, questions regarding production, business models, and—if you listen to us—rhetoric.

Despite this complexity, the selling of clothes as consumer products is at least in principle relatively straightforward as an environmental challenge. Governments regulate working conditions, chemicals, and materials used, etc., while the companies producing the products adhere to these rules, or not, perhaps adding their own criteria. Then, in light of all this, and taking account of factors important to them, consumers can buy the products, or elect not to, perhaps choosing something else or indeed wholly abstaining.

Other arenas provide different challenges in terms of both the ecology of green promises, and the transparency of sustainability. Below we will further exemplify and highlight some challenges by looking at green marketing within the energy sector.

9.4 Balanced Corporate Rhetoric: Challenges and Possibilities in Marketing Energy

Energy production and consumption has a huge impact on the climate and corporate green promises regarding the sustainability of energy are commonplace in energy producers’ marketing. However, energy is a prerequisite for most domains of production and consumption, and green promises about energy are often made not only by energy producers, but also by energy consumers. Producers of goods, for instance, often mention their use of energy from renewable sources as an argument in marketing their products as sustainable. (“Our bread is baked using wind power!”) Energy is thus an important issue for concrete climate transition work and for corporate marketing relating to it. In that sense, energy is similar to, for example, transportation and logistics, or social responsibility for workers, in that it is an integrated dimension of other markets. Energy also has a pervasive effect on those markets in a way that influences their respective discourses. Beyond the importance of energy for other commercial sectors, the energy market is interesting in its own right. It has unique characteristics, relating to the products, the regulatory framework, and the norms of discourse, and the latter is in turn affected by the products and regulations.

In this section, we want to explore the virtue perspective further by using energy marketing as a frame of reference. Of particular interest are the ethics of selection and deflection, as well as the corresponding virtues of balanced disclosure of relevant aspects (e.g. as relating to product/company/process), and balanced disclosure of economic, environmental, social, and ethical responsibility (see Chap. 6, Sect. 6.2). The idea is not to go into specifics concerning how to make various types of green promises relating to certain technological solutions, or how to best phrase such promises.¹³ Instead, we use the energy market as an example and a resource for discussing the challenges and possibilities relating to being balanced in matters that are highly complex. In doing so, we want to highlight some possibly fruitful connections between on the one hand the challenges of green marketing within the energy sector and on the other contemporary research on environmental communication and climate transition rhetoric.

While arguably all areas of global production and consumption are complex, due to the global scale and their many interconnected parts, the energy market, and thus energy marketing, is different in many ways from more typical marketing of consumer goods, such as clothing. These differences present particular challenges.

First, products such as electricity, gas, oil, or indeed heat do not present themselves as distinct objects. What you consume is not an individual pair of slim-fit jeans made in a specific factory in Bangladesh. Rather, it is a fungible quantity of a certain product, or indeed only a measure of a continuous flow, which can only be distinguished with more or less advanced technical aids. These products are assigned certain rather abstract qualities and will often be tradable only as something allocated from the global marketplace, or allotted from a larger systemic pool. The conceptualization of this as a product is in a sense metaphorical. The energy market is thus different in terms of both how commodification works and how the products function.

Second, most products on the energy market are not only, or perhaps even primarily, consumer products. Energy is fundamental to all aspects of society, and a necessity for us, as a species, in order to do any kind of work. Easily transportable energy sources such as oil, coal, and gas have indeed been instrumental in enabling and shaping industrialization as well as the broader global economy (Malm 2016). Commercial actors, public actors, and private individuals all require energy to perform even basic functions. This is one of the reasons why the energy market is high up on the international political agenda, and why marketing and demand function differently in the energy sector. The ongoing “energy crisis” resulting from the war in Ukraine illustrates how a shortage of energy, or even the risk of energy shortage, can have profound effects on society and on the workings of the market.

Third, the relative sustainability of different energy consumption and production options is often complex. It is regularly subject to intense debate. Partly, this is due to the interconnected nature of different systems, as well the various temporalities at play regarding the impacts of climate change (e.g. in terms of what is desirable in the short term vs. necessary in the long run). In addition, when studying electricity we can see that various forms of production, storage, and consumption not only have a climate footprint, but also impact the functioning of the electricity system and market in different ways. The effects on the electricity system include security, quality, and balance (between production and demand at any given time and location). The topic of sustainable electricity production and consumption is thus both technically and discursively complex.

As the complexities are interconnected, and linked with various conflicting interests, determining the best energy choices is rarely a straightforward task. Especially as the most sustainable form of energy production is not necessarily to be found in one single technology, but could instead be a specific combination of different forms of production, depending on the geography, meteorology, and other factors. Hence—and this is a key point—green marketing on this market constitutes an arena particularly well suited for thoughtful deliberative practices, where actors show prudence in the weighing of alternatives.

The complexity and the challenges of different energy choices can be illustrated by the debates on the EU Taxonomy, a classification system of “environmentally sustainable economic activities”, part of the EU financial regulatory framework. The taxonomy is primarily intended to guide financial decision making toward a more sustainable order. The taxonomy has been a major subject of debate. It has sparked discussions regarding whether natural gas, as a fossil fuel, or nuclear power, with its particular environmental challenges, should reasonably be considered sustainable (e.g. Schreiber et al. 2020; Spinaci 2020; Zachmann 2020). These issues are highly contested, but our point here is rather simple: Even if a certain form of energy production, analyzed separately, would, in some respects, be clearly better than another form of energy production, also analyzed separately, one should avoid such atomism. Instead, the production forms should be evaluated as part of a highly complex system of interconnected parts. Further, this complex system will inevitably require balancing both in technical and in economic terms, as well as in terms of the social dynamics governing their respective legitimacy. Such balancing must inevitably be multifaceted and consider multiple aspects. These include the potential for scaling, the qualities of the energy produced,¹⁴ and the corresponding possibilities or challenges in terms of planability, stability, security, and access to fuel. It is also necessary to consider initial investment costs, as well as the costs and complexity, or simplicity, of continued production. In light of this, critique against the EU taxonomy based on the fact that it takes political considerations and national interests into account seems to be simultaneously correct and misleading. Critics are correct, in that certain choices may be unfortunate in relation to the urgent timeline for climate transition, but having the democratic legitimacy of the framework in mind is not necessarily problematic. In fact, it is rather the opposite. That political considerations are part of the EU taxonomy mirrors that choices relating to energy production are not purely scientific questions but also inherently political issues. The governing structures of the system of energy production are inherently part of the polis. Therefore, the discourse on energy should be considered an arena for the exercise of prudence.

The EU Taxonomy does not just illustrate the complexity of deciding what are sustainable energy sources. It also illustrates one way of handling such complexities, namely by adopting adaptive standards. It is worth noting that taxonomies, or standards, can be provided not only by the government, but also by civil society or collaborative business organizations (as indeed is illustrated by e.g. the development of voluntary sustainability standards, discussed in Sect. 9.1).

A key dimension of rhetorical prudence (discussed in Chap. 6, Sect. 6.1, and Chap. 8, Sect. 8.2) in complex and politically infused matters concerns how the rhetoric, as expressed reasoning, relates to the ethics of selection and deflection. In fact, all green marketing involves choices about which aspects to highlight—and which to deflect. These choices provide various framings, and as such, they are inherently rhetorical. They shape not only how a certain problem is described, who has the responsibility to address it, and how this can or should be done, but also whether or not something is at all seen as a problem or an issue (e.g. Entman 1993; Kuypers 2010). In fact, as a matter of rhetorical criticism, even silence involves framing, and can be considered an especially flagrant way of deflection (Glenn 2004).

A simplistically “traditional” understanding of strategic communication could be that a company should highlight “all that is beneficial for them” and suppress all that is not. Such a recommendation suggests a rather cynical approach to “efficiency” in communication. It reflects an instrumentalist view, where ethics are bracketed, and actions evaluated merely in terms of their consequences for a corporate bottom line without taking account of the practices in and of themselves. In our view, such instrumentalism is neither virtuous nor ethically neutral, and in this book, we propose a different viewpoint.

In light of the challenges of green promises in the energy sector, we can now add another normative product of the virtue framework. Namely, that the complexity of a system should influence the evaluation of rhetoric treating matters relating to that system. Acknowledging complexity, and navigating it explicitly, can in itself be a rhetorical virtue and should be assessed as such. In fact, the virtues of being balanced (both as relating to product/company/process, and in terms of economic, environmental, social, and ethical responsibility), and of making fair and relevant comparisons, both exemplify how handling complexity is part of virtuous rhetoric. The performance of these virtues will inevitably be influenced by the complexity of the context, which in turn renders the appraisal of them into a qualitative task.

Our point, on the virtue of being balanced and fair, could be illustrated negatively, by looking at the opposite of what we propose. Unbalanced rhetoric and unfair comparisons are both widespread in the public debate on energy and present in marketing guided by a traditional capitalist logic. When faced with the challenge of creating a sustainable energy system, many politicians and participants in the public debate resort to arguing for or against a specific energy source, contrasting it to others on selective grounds. The particular position varies, but much of the political debate is characterized by polarization and demonstrative rhetoric. At times, it is almost as if they were arguing over which is the best hockey team, rather than participating in an open-ended, intellectually honest deliberation over the relative merits of different energy sources—and how different ways of production are best combined to form an optimal energy mix in relation to certain values.

Interestingly, although perhaps less surprising, corporate rhetoric from niche energy producers, and green marketing of energy aimed at consumers, often follow a similar logic. Using demonstrative rhetoric, they defend or promote one type of product, contrasting it to others in selective ways. While this may be logical in terms of commercial competition, it seems suboptimal in terms of facilitating a sustainable energy transition. To be virtuous, in the present prudential sense, such rhetoric should acknowledge the systemic aspect of energy production and avoid employing overly atomistic arguments. Strategies for doing this include anchoring the rhetoric in a larger framework, such as national or international goals (cf. Rönnelid 2023), avoiding posturing, and being open about the complexity of the issues at hand (cf. e.g. Killingsworth and Palmer 1992).

As we envision how corporate green promises in general, and green marketing in particular, can facilitate transition, the question of how they can handle complexity rhetorically needs to be taken into account. Thus far, we have adopted a rather critical viewpoint of the current state of affairs. There are, however, more balanced accounts to be found—both in the public conversation and in the discourses of the private sector. As we attempt to explore a constructive take on corporate rhetoric, such examples deserve attention.

We will now devote some attention to a Swedish private sector podcast, EnergiStrategiPodden (The Energy Strategy Podcast). The podcast is used here as a concrete example of much more general themes and as an illustration of how the private sector can provide an arena for prudence, which can contribute to fostering a positive social dynamic. Diving into the content, we could first note that in the introduction to the episodes, the host presents himself to the listeners as the one “sharing their interest in the energy system and its various strategic challenges”. It is not emphasized in the show, but the host is also founder and former CEO of the consulting company behind the podcast. In the various episodes, invited guests from the energy sector are interviewed about energy strategies, business operations, their products, and what problems and possibilities they see concerning different aspects of the energy system. Compared with the general public debate, the show provides a more balanced account of the challenges of the ongoing energy transition. This is mainly due to the show’s diversity of participants, the relatively nuanced and pedagogical style of discussion, the explorative lines of questioning, and the tendency to allow in-depth discussions.

Interestingly, the podcast and many of the companies interviewed could also be said to illustrate the potentially constructive relationship between self-interest and the public good that we discussed in Chap. 5. Several actors do in fact frame themselves as enablers of a sustainable transition and thus as good. Their commercial interests are not denied, but participants in the podcast often highlight how their business models change or develop to serve climate transition, for instance by the development of new products, streamlining, or cultivation of new market opportunities. Thus, the market economy is perpetually present in the background, and the possibility of profit is seen as an enabler of transition, which in itself is generally discussed in terms of an unquestionable necessity.

One episode (#156), published in December 2022, illustrates how the podcast both navigates complexity and frames profit as a necessary catalyst for climate transition. In the episode, a representative of state-owned Vattenfall, one of Sweden’s largest energy companies, is interviewed about the recently reawakened interest in large-scale development of nuclear power in the Swedish energy system. The episode focuses on the complexity of building new nuclear power plants and how much needs to be done in order to create conditions where it is even possible, not to mention economically feasible, to do so. This line of reasoning provides a sharp contrast to accounts in the public debate (especially in comparison to the campaign rhetoric that permeated the 2022 election). The discussion refrains from deflecting the major challenges of a renewed nuclear power program in Sweden. It thus seems to represent a more balanced perspective, compared to other accounts that without serious inquiry criticize any nuclear investment as being too costly, dangerous, or narrow-minded. It also seems more balanced than the opposite accounts, which take as self-evident that large-scale development of nuclear power is the one and only way forward. In our view, the balanced perspective is not one that assumes that all energy sources should continue to be part of the mix, but one which considers all energy sources on their respective merits, including systemic effects. The representative of Vattenfall is not primarily involved in pro-et-contra argumentation, but focuses on describing the complexity in a nuanced way. The episode provides a description of what needs to be done to make new nuclear power ventures practically and economically feasible.¹⁵

While several episodes are thus pedagogical in nature, and seemingly devoted to furthering the listeners’ understanding of the complexities inherent in climate transition, there are also aspects of framing that are no doubt problematic. For example, in the Vattenfall episode, the imprecise slogan of becoming fossil free within one generation is mentioned.¹⁶ What is more, as the theme of the episode is nuclear energy, Vattenfall is afforded the opportunity to project a highly positive image of themselves as prudent and reasonable in relation to a hotly debated issue, while the representative receives no critical questions about other aspects of his employer’s operations.

The underlying bias that often lurks in these episodes finds another example in episode #146, where the Swedish fuel company Preem is interviewed about their sustainability work and climate-transition targets.¹⁷ The representatives of Preem highlight that working at Preem is a way of working for climate transition and underscore their future-oriented goals of becoming climate neutral, as well as their work with “ramping up” their production of biofuels and reducing the fossil-carbon emission from their refining processes. This description constitutes a highly selective framing of their climate impact. The host, however, questions the representatives from Preem about the total climate impact of the company’s fuel production. He encourages them to expand on their climate footprint, to present a more comprehensive view of the CO₂ emissions from different stages of the petroleum value chain, and to clarify what percentage of Preem’s fuel production is actually made up of biofuels. Now, there is some obvious strategic maneuvering at play. The guests emphasize that Preem does not have its own reserves or oil wells. It does not operate “upstream” in the petroleum value chain. They also emphasize how the emissions from Preem’s refineries are relatively small, compared to the emissions from the upstream processes of the petroleum industry, not to mention the emissions from end consumers using the products. Still, the in sum massive emissions, as well as the significant emissions of the refinery processes, are explicitly highlighted in the episode. It also highlights that renewable fuels are only a relatively small part of their business (the interview was aired in November 2022).

Preem’s main strategy of green marketing in the episode is two pronged. First, to emphasize how it is different from other petroleum companies, a fact for which anecdotal evidence is repeatedly supplied, by the representatives talking about how, at sector conferences, other companies react to how Preem is an odd company. Second, the representatives emphasize how the company is future oriented, in a way vaguely reminiscent of H&M’s strategy (see Sect. 9.3). They talk about how Preem is moving toward transition (increasing the percentage of renewables in the mix, etc.). A possible difference, as compared to H&M, is that Preem, through its representatives, is more effective in portraying itself as already in movement toward the future foreseen and as having goals that are more fundamental to the company’s transition to a more sustainable business model. H&M promises to do more in the future, thus managing to simultaneously promise and postpone action and real change. Preem, however, better manages to frame themselves as already effectively engaged in an irrevocable process of transitioning.

Examining EnergiStrategiPodden a bit closer, we can see that it not only serves as a platform for green marketing of its guests. The podcast also serves as a marketing tool for the company behind the podcast, Sigholm Tech. It specializes in consulting services in strategy, business development, and technical challenges relating to the energy industry. The producing company is rarely given much attention in the episodes. This can give the impression of an independent journalistic product. Indeed, several of the podcast providers locate it in the “Education” section, and in one “reflective episode, looking at what they’ve done and discussing what is to come” (#30), the host and a “guest” from within the company discuss their ambition to be neutral in terms of politics and values. Still, in relation to those who do note the organization behind the show, or perhaps find the podcast through that company’s website, it will definitely function as marketing. Every time the host asks a question that is either constructive, or projects an image of being knowledgeable, this will strengthen not only his own ethos, but also that of the company (which also happens to bear the host’s surname as its company name).

It is of course not a novel notion that a podcast can be used for marketing purposes, as indeed many podcasts are funded by ads or various “commercial co-operations”. The marketing can however be more or less apparent. Another Swedish podcast about energy illustrates this, namely, the podcast Kraftsamtal (Power talks), which is provided by Hitachi Energy, a Swedish subsidiary of the multinational conglomerate selling energy technology solutions. In Kraftsamtal, the episodes typically include both an external guest and an in-house guest from Hitachi. The performance of a marketing function is more blatant, as the in-house guest will often express positive views about the products and services provided by the parent company. In EnergiStrategiPodden, the framing of the podcast is less easily categorized as product marketing. The format is in no way brazenly used to promote individual services or even the company behind it. Moreover, it does seem to have an independent journalistic and educational purpose, in addition to any self-serving purposes. Still, it is noteworthy that several of the companies whose representatives are interviewed in the podcast, including Vattenfall and Stockholm Exergi (another major actor in the Swedish energy sector), are also listed as clients on the producing company’s website. This fact is not mentioned in the podcast episodes, but it is difficult not to factor in when assessing the podcast’s overall credibility.¹⁸ Interestingly, the format can be used not only for marketing purposes relating to a third-party audience, that is, the listeners. It can also be used as a means of developing the relationship between the parties participating in the conversation.

While the guests seem mostly to be business actors, the podcast has featured politicians, researchers, and experts, as well as representatives from different organizations and interest groups, and officials from government agencies and authorities. Again, this diversity supports the idea that the podcast provides an arena for combining prudence and green marketing. Still, improvements could be made concerning transparency as regards commercial relationships between the host company and guest organizations. We must also note that this particular podcast is, of course, a niche product, aimed at people in the business or with a particular in-depth interest in energy discussions. Thus, it cannot be seen as providing a template for how green marketing within the energy sector should be carried out in general. Nevertheless, the example maintains its relevance. In the last episode of 2022 (#158), the host announced that the podcast had 130,000 listenings during the year, which is a significant number, considering it is a rather technical and detail-oriented Swedish-language podcast. Also, the concept of marketing—not least within the energy sector—should not be reduced to short TV ads, radio slogans, or billboards, pitching individual products to end consumers. To get a more purposive concept of marketing, it must be conceptualized wider and allowed to include more media, more addressees, and more inconspicuous tactics than the paradigmatic case of “Buy this thing!” Subtle relationship-building strategies can be at least as important (as has indeed also been widely recognized in the field of marketing studies for decades, e.g. Bagozzi 1975; Grönroos 1994: Vargo and Lusch 2011). When it comes to the energy market, channels with more in-depth treatments can potentially have a considerable impact on key transition stakeholders, that is, actors capable of substantially contributing to climate transition.

Moving on from these podcast examples, it is worth reiterating that while the list of individual virtues outlined in Chap. 6 can be useful in examining energy marketing, it is also crucial to understand how companies frame the issues of energy-system transition and climate change on a societal level. Such studies of corporate framing can provide insight into how marketing can aid or hinder progress toward a sustainable energy system and combating climate change. Therefore, our discussion on framing, which includes selection and deflection, should be broadened to encompass not only product framing but also the construction of corporate ethos and larger societal narratives. This broader approach lets us explore fruitful links to rhetorical research on effective environmental communication and climate transition rhetoric.

Qualitative research on corporate rhetoric within the energy sector often seems to thematize how the rhetoric of certain companies or industries provide a problematic framing of society, for example, by using frames that downplay the risks of climate change, emphasize the risk of a societal climate transition, avoid accountability, or allocate responsibility to other actors or countries. As discussed in Chap. 6, Sect. 6.3, Scanlan (2017) has, for example, demonstrated how petroleum companies argue for the societal benefits, or even necessity, of continuing with their controversial fracking method of oil extraction, while Smerecnik and Renegar (2010) have shown the problematic framing of climate transition used in a British Petroleum marketing campaign. We would like to propose that this type of research is continued, but with a slight shift, from the dominance of criticism, to include the objective of finding virtuous examples and constructive argumentative maneuvers.

The adoption of such a perspective in qualitative rhetorical research involves more than a modification of research questions and study materials—emphasizing a constructive approach constitutes a change of scholarly logic. Asking questions about how we can envision a virtuous framing of society and its challenges also provides openings for a fruitful dialogue with environmental communication research and rhetorical climate transition research. There are salient connections to these fields. We have private businesses whose business models are intertwined with energy transition. Thus, their corporate communication practice intertwines the end goals of marketing and climate transition rhetoric. Comparative studies taking account of work from different fields seems a particularly fruitful avenue of inquiry. By singling out different ways of facilitating transition and their respective impacts, research can help provide a more developed theoretical framework for regulatory intervention. An example is provided in Wüstenhagen and Bilharz’s (2004) research. They have studied the relative effects of on the one hand public policy and on the other consumer demand as facilitators of energy transition. Their research suggests the need for both. Another area that deserves attention is the scholarly debate on the relation between rhetoric, convictions, knowledge, and action as regards climate transition. A key question in this field, highly relevant for green marketing studies, is how rhetoric can guide praxis by forming values and by encouraging certain behavior.

Let’s allow ourselves a short detour into some fundamental questions of this exciting subfield of rhetoric and communication studies. We can then note that one way to tackle the challenge of climate transition, as a matter of communication, has been to consider it an information deficit problem. Indeed, climate transition rhetoric, in the sense of a scholarly discipline and societal practice aiming to facilitate sustainable transition, has frequently been discussed in terms of solving or at least addressing an information deficit. Researchers have been posing the question of how best to inform consumers about the facts of climate change and the benefits of investing in, for example, more effective energy solutions.

However, information alone does not seem to suffice. Even as public awareness of the problems of climate change heightens, inertia seems to persist. Several studies point to the gap between knowledge and action, and there are studies critical of the possibilities of bringing about behavioral change by merely informing people on matters related to climate change (on the “information deficit model”, and the critique of it, see Suldovsky 2017). Hence, scholars and practitioners interested in how green marketing of energy can facilitate transition should not take for granted that merely informing the public about the complex matters involved will be enough to encourage behavioral change.

On the other hand, we should not fall into the opposite trap either, dismissing the value of knowledge, overemphasizing the problematic nature of our social being, and resorting to cynical techniques of manipulation (“nudging” being one of the possibly less controversial examples, e.g. Lehner et al. 2016). In exploring the possible characteristics of virtuous energy marketing, we must instead acknowledge that just as the information deficit model has its deficiencies, so do models that ignore the role of knowledge and substantial arguments. While humans might not be rational in the sense of the enlightenment’s liberal humanist ideal, nor are we incapable of making responsible choices when presented with information that invites action.

In moving forward, we need to acknowledge that while information and knowledge is not enough, it is important. When evaluating the role of knowledge, we need to factor in the importance of emotions, social factors, and psychological aspects, to construct satisfactory rhetorical “models”. Also, the importance of knowledge cannot be reduced to a binary question, answered plainly in the affirmative or negative. Research has shown that when evaluating the effects of knowledge on behavior we must consider the type of knowledge involved. General knowledge about climate change may not induce change, but certain specific types and objects of knowledge might be catalysts for change. For example, one study has indicated that knowledge about the causes and consequences of climate change can be an effective catalyst of behavioral adjustment while knowledge about the physical characteristics of the climate change process (such as the different roles of CO₂ and methane) is not. Increased information might even be counterproductive, especially if the communications fail to adhere to the values of the target audience (Shi et al. 2016). Another study has shown how many communicative efforts relating to climate transition fail to provide a sense of scale in terms of what choices matter the most. They thereby fail to guide the audience toward changes that have the most impact (Wynes and Nicholas 2017; Wynes 2019). In a third study, researchers focused on people who have actually changed their lifestyles. This study emphasizes the importance of increased knowledge, but also that there is a qualitative and very personal dimension to this process of increased knowledge, often narrated as an emotional process where knowledge is transformed into insight, which is a more potent driver of change (Wormbs and Wolrath Söderberg 2021). Thus, certain types of knowledge function more constructively in relation to climate transition than others and we need to be mindful that emotions and cultural values are intrinsic to decisions (indeed, this is often taken as a premise, in the growing field of climate psychology, see e.g. Hoggett 2019; Hollway et al. 2022).

All in all, it is important to provide a space for prudence. We should avoid resorting to the aforementioned kind of demonstrative argumentation that follows from the reductionist path of praise-and-blame rhetoric. Instead, we should acknowledge the complex, composite, perhaps even convoluted, nature of the issues involved. We should put all cards on the table and deliberate in good faith. Perhaps it sounds over-the-top idealistic to hope that large energy companies governed by a profit motive (as is indeed presumed by most codes of corporate legislation), often with one foot in the fossil industry, should adhere to high-minded ideals of a partly altruistic nature. However, we can already see how forms of climate capitalism are being envisioned, realized, and further developed. Such a development can be facilitated by policy changes and indeed supported by the ever more solidified institution of climate change, as a basis for legitimation efforts. While there are no doubt fundamental challenges in combining sustainability with traditional capitalist structures, the idea of climate capitalism is not necessarily a contradiction in terms.¹⁹ In fact, we argue that it is possible to envision how climate transition can be facilitated by an increased awareness of its rhetorical dimension in general and an adoption of high standards concerning green marketing in particular.

In a wide sense, the group of climate capitalists includes all companies that undertake to support climate transition as an integral aspect of their organizations, thus complementing, or sometimes even supplanting, the interest of profit. A possible internationally well-known example is the outdoor equipment company Patagonia, under its new ownership (mentioned in Sect. 9.3). An example from the Swedish energy sector is the electricity trading company GodEL,²⁰ which also portrays itself as this sort of company, emphasizing how it sells electricity from renewable sources and transfers all profit to charities. There have been debates on how effective it is to donate indirectly, by trading with a company that donates its profit, but for our purposes, it exemplifies how the financial bottom line versus public good conflict can be negotiated in various ways.²¹

From our conversation on energy marketing and climate transition, it appears that considering the concept of prudence and the virtue framework can offer enriching perspectives. Beyond that, the discussion above indicates the need for further research exploring the complex functions of green marketing in the energy market. To indicate future directions for such research, building on the perspectives presented in this volume, the virtue framework would benefit from being further developed by:

• A. identifying virtues for framing the challenge of climate change, as well as the premises of climate transition,

• B. exploring rhetorical virtues for communicating complex products positioned within a complex system,

• C. further developing the understanding of green marketing as a societal performance of virtue, by focusing not only on consumer marketing but also on business-to-business relations as well as business–government dynamics, and

• D. critically discussing the complex motivational structures of different commercial actors in relation to their different stakeholders.

Our discussion of corporate rhetoric in the energy sector indicates that to facilitate virtuous marketing, in the sense that we imagine in this book, we need to go beyond general one-size-fits-all principles and lists. Researchers, businesses, and other stakeholders must work to make those lists and principles more concrete. They must re-negotiate them in relation to the unique challenges of various sectors where such virtues are applicable. Here, we would like to remind the reader of the five analytical principles presented in Chap. 8:

• Principle 1—The principle of situationality

• Principle 2—The principle of multiple motives

• Principle 3—The principle of multiple effects

• Principle 4—The principle of multiple audiences

• Principle 5—The principle of prudence and transparency

We believe that these principles can aid in the necessary process of concretization. The way we see it, they have a broad applicability. The principles can be used in various contexts and be helpful in performing analyses of marketing virtue.

To bring this discussion to a close, green marketing in the energy sector is an important and timely topic as we strive to move toward a more sustainable future. It is crucial for companies and industry organizations as well as legislators, legal practitioners, and environmental organizations to understand the possible benefits of green marketing. Green marketing does not only affect the corporate bottom line. It can also play a part in safeguarding the environment and supporting climate transition. As by now must be clear, from our perspective this is the rationale for supporting green marketing. Nevertheless, to help develop green marketing into a force that influences people and guides behavior in a more climate-friendly direction, we should accept that the pursuit of profit is at the heart of current marketing practices. Profit is the guiding light of the contemporary capitalist structure. However, it is possible to accept the importance of the profit motive without abandoning all reflection and criticism. You do not need to capitulate to cynicism or embrace the practices it leads to, such as misleading advertising and greenwashing. Nor do you need to accept an ever-increasing consumerism, as if it were an inevitable and natural state. In this chapter, we have discussed how marketing, as communication, is unavoidably influenced by the context in which it is performed and how the context must also influence what performances should be considered ethical. While some general points have been made—such as that complexity should not be overly suppressed, that different types of knowledge can have varying levels of (in)effectiveness as drivers of change, and that motives (or combinations of motives) need to be considered when discussing how to best facilitate virtuous action—we have also identified the need to develop our theoretical framework further, to make it more concrete and directly applicable to different areas of marketing. For such developments, the energy system provides an especially interesting example. In part, this is due to its characteristics, as regards the products, the highly regulated atmosphere, and the in turn sophisticated discursive conditions. The energy system is, indeed, technically and regulatory complex, with many interconnected parts, regions, and actors who must all interact successfully. It is also the perhaps singularly most important factor in climate transition ahead, as modern life as we know it is so inextricably tied to energy usage—a need which is indeed growing as new technologies develop, old energy sources need to be phased out, and as people around the globe strive toward better living conditions. Thus, the communicative conditions of the energy system need to be considered a crucial matter going forward. The virtue framework we have presented can aid that work.