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Sustainability Ratings and the Disciplinary Power of the Ideology of Numbers

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Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to better understand how sustainability rating agencies, through discourse, promote an “ideology of numbers” that ultimately aims to establish a regime of normalization governing social and environmental performance. Drawing on Thompson’s (Ideology and modern culture: Critical social theory in the era of mass communication, 1990) modes of operation of ideology, we examine the extent to which, and how, the ideology of numbers is reflected on websites and public documents published by a range of sustainability rating agencies. Our analysis indicates that the ideology of numbers promotes a relatively narrow vision of corporate social and environmental responsibility. That is, it establishes some areas of visibility while leaving in the shadow certain aspects of the ways in which companies fulfill, or fail to meet, their social and environmental responsibilities. The ideology of numbers also exerts power by identifying those companies that are deemed to be worthy of inclusion, or not, in a supposedly socially responsible corporate elite.

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Notes

  1. A particularly vague definition of corporate sustainability is provided in Wikipedia (January 23, 2012): “Corporate sustainability is a business approach that creates long-term consumer and employee value by not only creating a ‘green’ strategy aimed towards the natural environment, but taking into consideration every dimension of how a business operates in the social, cultural, and economic environment.”

  2. Examples of scandals in the last decades include Union Carbide (Bhopal) and more recently BP.

  3. Both sociologists have an interest in the concept of power. Foucault (1979) focused on the way in which disciplinary power tends to be exerted. In doing so, he emphasized the role of standards and techniques of normalization, particularly in the identification of “deviants.” Yet Foucault refused to consider power in terms of ideology, and shifted the focus to discursive practices, among other practices, and the actions by which the government of subjects is (or is not) operationalized. Thompson (1990) has a particular interest in the role of the meaning contained in discourse in favoring relations of power and domination. He focuses specifically on the linguistic strategies through which a particular ideology is promoted in discourse and serves as a support for the exercise of power. Thompson emphasizes the way in which discourse is expressed in society without dwelling on specific actors. This appears to be compatible with the Foucauldian conception, which posits that power is dispersed and disseminated throughout society and cannot be solidly connected to any specific actor. Whereas Foucault emphasized the role of the micro-processes through which power is exerted on the subjectivity of human beings, Thompson focuses on the discursive and ideological strategies that support the exercise of power. In this paper, the combination of the arguments provided by Foucault and Thompson seems particularly useful for understanding how the ideology of numbers is promoted in the discourse of sustainability rating agencies and its role in the exercise of disciplinary power.

  4. The guide was established by a working group of French professionals and academics (ORSE 2007). Its production was funded by two French organizations: the Observatoire sur la responsabilité sociétale des entreprises (ORSE, Study Center for Corporate Social Responsibility) and the Agence de l’environnement et de la maîtrise de l’énergie (ADEME, French Environment and Energy Management Agency).

  5. AccountAbility was originally involved in ratings in partnership with CSR Network (now Two Tomorrows). Since then, AccountAbility refocused its activities toward the development of sustainability standards.

  6. Declarative ratings include publicly available indexes such as Ethibel Sustainability and ASPI Eurozone. The DEEPP model, developed by BMJ Ratings, belongs to the solicited rating category. Also, sustainability ratings should not be confused with sustainability standards (e.g., GRI—Global Reporting Initiative—and ISO 26000) used to prepare and audit corporate disclosures. It should be recognized, however, that a number of rating agencies take such sustainability standards into account when developing their rating methodologies.

  7. See http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2007/10/31/10-mostaccountable-companies/#comment.

  8. These include AccountAbility, BMJ Ratings, Covalence, DJSI, Ethibel, Ethifinance, KLD, M&E, SAM Research, SustainAbility, Sustainalytics, Two Tomorrows and Vigeo.

  9. Our primary aim is to underline the normalizing implications of the ideology of numbers. From a different perspective, it can be pointed out that “low-performing” companies may provide jobs to thousands of individuals, offer pension plans, and invest in the community, whereas others may operate in “acceptable” sectors, make exemplary disclosures, but operate fragile oil wells.

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Acknowledgments

The authors benefited from the comments on earlier versions made by Sylvain Durocher, Henri Guénin-Paracini, and four reviewers. They also gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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Chelli, M., Gendron, Y. Sustainability Ratings and the Disciplinary Power of the Ideology of Numbers. J Bus Ethics 112, 187–203 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1252-3

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