Anseende eller Legitimitet : En analys av hållbarhetskommunikationen från två modeföretag.

Sammanfattning: Sustainability is a highly discussed subject in today’s society. One industry that is facing big challenges when it comes to its environmental effect is the fashion industry. The pressure to live up to the society’s norms regarding sustainability can lead to greenwashing. Greenwashing arises when a company's positive communication regarding their sustainability does not match with their actual environmental impact. When it comes to how companies want to portrait themselves and communicate they can choose to focus on either creating a good reputation or be legitimate. These two ways of communicating can end up in conflict since it is important to differentiate from competitors but also show that you follow expected norms. This essay’s purpose has been to investigate how two of the world’s highest valued fashion companies, H&M Group and Inditex, focus on reputation or legitimacy for their sustainability communication. The essay shows that H&M Group and Inditex are very similar in their use of both reputation and legitimacy for their sustainability communication. The study shows that both companies focus slightly more on creating a better reputation than legitimacy though. The essay also shows that both companies possibly could be using greenwashing to strengthen their reputation and legitimacy.