Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Corporate sustainability communication has expanded substantially over the past two decades, yet this growth has not been matched by equivalent reductions in corporate emissions. As regulatory pressure on climate claims has intensified, including the 2023 Swedish Market Court ruling that found Arla Foods guilty of misleading marketing by using unverified claims when communicating about their climate impact, questions arise about how corporations construct and justify their climate representations. This study examines how IKEA and H&M frame climate responsibility in their sustainability reports across two time periods separated by the Arla Foods ruling. The analysis uses Bacchi's “What's the Problem Represented to Be?” approach to examine ten reports published between 2020 and 2024.

The findings show that both companies primarily frame climate responsibility as a technical and measurable challenge, presenting growth and emission reductions as compatible goals while leaving production volumes, consumer demand, and business models largely outside the scope of
responsibility. Both companies became more careful about how their climate claims are substantiated, anchoring them more explicitly in external standards and validation frameworks.
The underlying assumptions regarding corporate growth and the scope of climate responsibility, however, remain largely unchanged. The findings suggest that regulatory pressure influences how climate claims are communicated, without fundamentally changing how climate responsibility is
understood.