The Powerpoint Imagination: visualization and managerial vocabularies in sustainability reports

Ganesh S, Harness D, James S, Klingelhöfer J, Schnell M, Palakshappa N (2023)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2023

Journal

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management Taylor & Francis (Routledge)

DOI: 10.1080/09640568.2023.2268826

Abstract

Sustainability reporting has been established as a dominant but problematic communication practice in global sustainability management. In this paper, we challenge the commonplace view of reporting as the simple and textual transmission of information, by interpreting corporate sustainability reports as visual artefacts that encourage particular views of environmental issues. We discuss visualization as a key practice in communication and rhetoric, asking what visual managerialism looks like in corporate reports, focusing on a corpus drawn from the Swedish United Nations Global Compact. We engage in a three-stage rhetorical critique to identify three kinds of visualizations: numerical, diagrammatic, and pictorial, establishing how they emphasize communicative characteristics such as logic, simplicity, and clarity. We consolidate these characteristics with the term ‘Powerpoint Imagination,’ arguing that they construct environmental problems in terms of a technocratic solutionism, i.e., efficiency, standardization and control. We discuss some issues with the Powerpoint Imagination by contrasting it with other images from sustainability reports, concluding with implications for future research.

Involved external institutions

Massey University NZ New Zealand (NZ) University of Texas at Austin US United States (USA) (US) University of Cincinnati US United States (USA) (US)

How to cite

APA:

Ganesh, S., Harness, D., James, S., Klingelhöfer, J., Schnell, M., & Palakshappa, N. (2023). The Powerpoint Imagination: visualization and managerial vocabularies in sustainability reports. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2023.2268826

MLA:

Ganesh, Shiv, et al. "The Powerpoint Imagination: visualization and managerial vocabularies in sustainability reports." Journal of Environmental Planning and Management (2023).

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