| dc.description.abstract | In this thesis I examine how Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. constructs sustainability and growth. I have done this by conducting a critical discourse analysis of the "About" section of Sierra Nevada's company website. Unlike mediated texts like newspaper articles, the text on Sierra Nevada's website has been constructed by the company. This allows Sierra Nevada to represent itself exactly as it wishes to, which makes it the ideal data material for examining how Sierra Nevada constructs sustainability and growth. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge about corporate environmentalism and its discursive and social effects. The research questions are: 1. What meaning does Sierra Nevada give sustainability and how is this discourse constructed? 2. How is growth reconciled with sustainability in Sierra Nevada’s sustainability discourse? 3. How does Sierra Nevada’s sustainability discourse relate to the dominant corporate environmental discourse? Corporate environmentalism is a concept that refers to the dominant corporate environmental discourse. This discourse is based on the belief that continued economic growth can be reconciled with sustainability through technology, and that business should lead this effort without strict government regulations. Corporate environmentalism is an obstacle to effective action to mitigate climate change because it obscures alternative representations of and solutions to environmental problems and protects corporate power and resource access. It also stands in the way of a more democratic process surrounding climate change action both at the grassroots level and in international negotiations. The reason for analyzing Sierra Nevada's sustainability discourse was to consider whether a company known for its green corporate identity and leadership in sustainable brewing transform corporate environmentalism in a way that makes it a more effective tool for mitigating climate change or if it reproduces it. In this thesis I show how Sierra Nevada reproduces corporate environmentalism and its power relations. Sierra Nevada constructs a solution-oriented and technocentric sustainability discourse, which is typical of corporate environmentalism. Explicit references to the climate crisis as a whole are omitted. Instead, Sierra Nevada presents specific problems and corresponding solutions. The appropriateness and substantive impact of the solutions are taken for granted, and the construction of these claims as truths does not encourage consumers to engage reflexively with the information. Additionally, there is an inherent contradiction between the corporate goal of selling products and the provision of neutral information. Sierra Nevada attempts to lend credibility to its claims by referring to external certifications, but the reliability of these certifications is questionable due to difficulties in measuring environmental impact and the lack of trustworthy auditing. This combined with the fact that these certifications are voluntary, which gives companies the option to be unsustainable and greenwash, raises questions about whether self-regulation is an effective tool for regulating business and amending the information asymmetry between companies and consumers. Corporate environmentalism is unable to overcome the information problem due to the difficulties of balancing the goal of profit with full, reliable, and accessible information, and the consumer resources required to engage reflexively with the information. This rules out corporate environmentalism as a solution to the climate crisis as it is built around ethical consumption. Sierra Nevada reconciles growth and sustainability by reproducing corporate environmentalism. The solution-oriented and technocentric sustainability discourse constructed by Sierra Nevada frames the climate crisis as a problem that can be solved through technological advancement. Within this discourse continued economic growth is good because it contributes to innovation and the development of the technology needed to lower the environmental impact of the company's business activities. Rather than questioning the relationship between continued company growth and sustainability, Sierra Nevada's growth is placed within a classic corporate discourse based on supply and demand. The issue with this is that lowering the per-unit impact of production does not lower the overall impact of company growth. By constructing a leadership role for itself, Sierra Nevada justifies its continued growth by arguing that it will inspire the craft brewing industry to innovate and brew more sustainably. This growth portrayal reproduces the growth paradigm of corporate environmentalism and contributes to the marketization of public sustainability discourse, which stands in the way of effective and democratic action to mitigate the effects of climate change. | eng |