Purpose-Through an analysis of corporate sustainable development reporting, this paper seeks to examine critically language use and other visual (re)presentations of sustainable development within the business context. It aims to provide a framework to interpret and tease out business representations of sustainable development. Such representations are argued to be constitutive of the way that business has come to "know" and "do" sustainable development and, therefore, to constrain and enable particular actions and developments. Design/methodology/approach-The study uses a mix of synthesis, interpretive and discourse analysis to locate, interpret and critically analyse a corpus of written and presentational texts produced by a New Zealand business association and eight of its founding members' early triple bottom line reports. Findings-The business association and its members' reports are shown to present a pragmatic and middle-way discourse on business and the environment. Through the use of rhetorical claims to pragmatism and action, this discourse suggests that businesses are "doing" sustainability. But critical analysis and interpretation within a wider framework reveal a narrow, largely economic and instrumental approach to the natural environment. Originality/value-This paper offers a diagrammatic synthesis of the contested "middle ground" of the sustainable development debate, and thereby provides a frame of reference for further interpretational work on organisations and sustainable development.

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This paper reports the results of an interpretive textual analysis of New Zealand's most consistent and arguably leading reporter on environmental and social impacts. Since 1995, Watercare Services Ltd, an Auckland-based water utility, has been an award winning environmental reporter. The paper works with all of the organization's reports since 1993 through 2003 identifying and analysing the emergence and development of a sustainable development discourse. Focusing on the language and images used to construct meanings, and the context in which the reports emerged, the paper traces the organization's reporting developments. The paper illustrates how, in evolving from environmental reports to sustainable development reports, the organization has (re)constructed itself from one that sustainably manages resources to one that practises sustainable development. The implications of these developments are explored in terms of the literature on 'capture' and organizational change.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the act of shadow reporting by a social movement organisation as a form of shadow accounting within a sustained campaign against a target corporation. Situated within a consideration of power relations, the rationales underlying the production of the shadow report, and the shadow reports perceived value and limits as a shadow accounting mechanism, are investigated. Design/methodology/approach A Foucauldian approach to power/knowledge and truth is drawn upon in the analysis of a single case study. Alongside a consideration of the shadow report itself, interviews with both the preparers of the report and senior management of the corporation targeted comprise the main data. Findings The paper provides an empirical investigation into shadow reporting as a form of shadow accounting. While a range of insights are garnered into the preparation, dissemination and impact of the shadow report, key findings relate to a consideration of power relations. The perceived “truth” status of corporate accounts compared to accounts prepared by shadow accountants is problematised through a consideration of technologies of power and power/knowledge formations. Power relations are subsequently recognised as fundamental to the emancipatory potential of shadow reporting. Research limitations/implications Results from a single case study are presented. Furthermore, given the production of the shadow report occurred several years prior to the collection of data, participants were asked to reflect on past events. Findings are therefore based on those reflections. Originality/value While previous studies have considered the preparation of shadow reports and their transformative potential, this study is, the author believes, the first to empirically analyse the preparation, dissemination and perceived impacts of shadow reporting from the perspectives of both the shadow report producers and the target corporation.