The appropriation of the discourse of sustainability by Brazilian business organizations

Abstract

This article aims to trace, from its origins, the discourse of sustainability and its appropriation by business organizations, in order to better understand the ecological ideas that support the sustainable practices of some Brazilian companies. It is an exploratory, bibliographic and documentary research that, through the analysis of the discourse contained in five reports on sustainability, published by large Brazilian companies and recognized for their orientation towards sustainable practices, seeks to identify the content and real scope of the concept of the environmental rationality adopted by these companies. It is concluded that there is a lack of theoretical rationality in the discourses of the organizations analyzed. Most of the actions developed by these organizations have as their main issue the preservation of natural resources; The least considered topic in the proposals for sustainable practices is the prevention of catastrophes, which is why the distance between the proposals for sustainability formulated by the organizations studied and the theory of environmental rationality proposed by Enrique Leff is revealed.