ABSTRACT
This paper aims to advance knowledge about corporate environmentalism by using new concepts and methods. We broaden the concept of the firm as “differentiated composite actor” by including not only managers but workers and unionists as actors. We descend into the “hidden abode of production” using Lefebvre’s concept of “everyday life” to explore the barriers environmental policies experience in this sphere. We base our explorations on life-history interviews to understand how the imaginaries of production are embedded in people’s self-conceptions. We identify seven barriers to the implementation of environmental practices: deficient regulations, collusion between controller and controlled, de-prioritisation, hierarchism, compartmentalisation, specialisation, and social unsustainability. A “necessity discourse,” legitimating the priority of efficiency and product quality over environmental sustainability, subjugates alternative sustainable practices. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results in the light of previous investigations, suggesting that the concept of the everyday could enrich future research.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Misse Wester and Markieta Domecka for conducting many of the interviews and sharing their ideas for the analyses.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 European Commission, Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-ENV-2010).
2 Contractual agreements required maintenance of anonymity.
3 We cannot specify the references since that would amount to disclosing the identity of the companies.
4 A gender specific analysis will be conducted in a separate paper.
5 Due to the need for anonymity, we cannot cite GlobalTruck’s and GlobalOil’s environmental policies in detail, nor describe the companies more accurately. Scope 1, 2, and 3 emission data can be found in Moorhead and Nixon (Citation2015) for the world’s major carbon emitters. See also the Carbon Disclosure Project www.cdp.net.
6 All names are pseudonyms.
7 Our interviewee is talking about a diesel particulate filter, designed to remove the diesel particulate matter or soot from the exhaust gas of a diesel engine.