Strategic Sustainability: A Communication Study of Ganni

Abstract

Sustainability has become an inevitable part of business and stakeholders expect businesses to incorporate sustainability into their business focusing on environmental, social, and governance practices. Therefore, business communication has become more about showing companies’ contribution to solving society's problems, rather than solving companies' problems. On the path towards a sustainable transformation, there is a particular need for companies to be open about their commitment, goals, actions, and development in all areas of the sustainable palette, but also about doubts, dilemmas, and compromises that delay or stop this development. This poses an interesting question: If sustainability has now become an unavoidable part of companies' livelihoods, how best to shape and communicate their sustainability strategies?
This study sets out to get a deeper understanding of that question. It centres around the Danish fashion brand Ganni which is one of the leading fashion brands in Denmark striving for sustainability in an industry ranked as one of the most polluting in the world. This interesting paradox initially inspired the groundwork for this paper. Therefore, this study sets out to identify what institutional pressures are present in Ganni’s surroundings and how the organization has responded strategically to these. In continuation hereof, the study examines Ganni’s external sustainability communication to demonstrate how the organization is communicating strategically about sustainability in order to gain legitimacy from its consumers. In conclusion, the study finds that Ganni's environment is dominated by regulatory, normative, and cognitive structures that create institutional pressure to take social responsibility and incorporate sustainability into the business. The institutional environment that surrounds Ganni is primarily characterized by a shared set of norms and local and global regulations. These entail that if one complies with society’s shared norms and set of rules, legitimacy is obtained. Ganni enacts through aspirational talk, transparency, and autocommunication as strategic communication tools in the pursuit of legitimacy. Especially transparency and aspirational talk are assessed to characterize Ganni's sustainability communication and to a large extent result in increased legitimacy. However, there may be a legitimacy problem for consumers, as there is no consistency between what Ganni does and what consumers find legitimate and credible. Future research should focus on discursive patterns in sustainability communication looking at language as a strategic driver for gaining legitimacy.