Att konstruera ett hållbart varumärke i en ohållbar industri

Sammanfattning: This study aims to deepen the understanding of how companies within environmentally harmful industries are able to construct sustainable brands by producing current sustainability discourses. This is done by using a critical discourse analysis and a multimodal critical discourse analysis on the “Fly Responsibly” campaign from 2019 by the airline company KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which consist of a website as well as a commercial video. The empirical data has been analyzed through a social constructivist perspective and a theoretical framework consisting mainly of Fairclough’s three dimensional model and chosen analytical tools, as well as the green economy discourse and the radical sustainability discourse. Based on the critical discourse analysis, it has been possible to identify how the language of KLM’s campaign is used in order to construct a sustainable brand. The results from the analysis show that KLM produces a mixture between the two sustainability discourses. However, they are expressed with varying degrees of certainty. It is also identified how KLM constructs its role as a leader of sustainable development in the industry, and that there is a certain amount of shift of responsibility for sustainability onto the consumer. The main conclusion that is presented is that companies within environmentally harmful industries should produce both sustainability discourses in their external communication. However, how they use the language in order to produce the discourses has an impact on the construction of a sustainable brand.