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From Strategic Opportunity to Existential Imperative : Sustainability discourses in fashion retail.

Egan-Wyer, Carys LU orcid (2021) The Nordic retail and wholesale conference 2021
Abstract
Organisations that deviate from ethical expectations regarding their behaviour risk damaging their image and, hence, threatening their very survival (refs.). Contemporary representations of fashion retail in media and popular culture—which depict fashion retail as a key contributor to the climate crisis—are, therefore, a challenge for retailers in general and for fashion retailers in particular. In this paper, I analyse sustainability communications from the fashion industry using an institutional perspective, which reminds us that organisations are embedded in social contexts and corporate communications are tools for negotiating legitimacy within those contexts. The findings illustrate how fashion retailers co-opt the language of climate... (More)
Organisations that deviate from ethical expectations regarding their behaviour risk damaging their image and, hence, threatening their very survival (refs.). Contemporary representations of fashion retail in media and popular culture—which depict fashion retail as a key contributor to the climate crisis—are, therefore, a challenge for retailers in general and for fashion retailers in particular. In this paper, I analyse sustainability communications from the fashion industry using an institutional perspective, which reminds us that organisations are embedded in social contexts and corporate communications are tools for negotiating legitimacy within those contexts. The findings illustrate how fashion retailers co-opt the language of climate activism to re-establish the industry’s legitimacy in the face of a climate crisis that threatens its very existence. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
unpublished
subject
pages
21 pages
conference name
The Nordic retail and wholesale conference 2021
conference location
Umeå, Sweden
conference dates
2021-11-09 - 2021-11-11
project
Centre for Retail Research at Lund University
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
b8128c54-a0d2-4b9d-a784-1efb293c406b
date added to LUP
2022-01-21 11:50:11
date last changed
2024-02-02 15:15:19
@misc{b8128c54-a0d2-4b9d-a784-1efb293c406b,
  abstract     = {{Organisations that deviate from ethical expectations regarding their behaviour risk damaging their image and, hence, threatening their very survival (refs.). Contemporary representations of fashion retail in media and popular culture—which depict fashion retail as a key contributor to the climate crisis—are, therefore, a challenge for retailers in general and for fashion retailers in particular. In this paper, I analyse sustainability communications from the fashion industry using an institutional perspective, which reminds us that organisations are embedded in social contexts and corporate communications are tools for negotiating legitimacy within those contexts. The findings illustrate how fashion retailers co-opt the language of climate activism to re-establish the industry’s legitimacy in the face of a climate crisis that threatens its very existence.}},
  author       = {{Egan-Wyer, Carys}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{11}},
  title        = {{From Strategic Opportunity to Existential Imperative : Sustainability discourses in fashion retail.}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}