FRAMING ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY AND GREENWASHING IN CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF FAISALABAD'S TEXTILE INDUSTRY

Abstract

As sustainability becomes an increasingly important component of corporate communication, concerns have emerged regarding the credibility of environmental claims made by organizations operating in environmentally sensitive industries. This study investigates how textile firms in Faisalabad construct and communicate environmental responsibility through corporate sustainability discourse and examines the extent to which such discourse reflects greenwashing practices. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the research analyzes sustainability reports, annual reports, corporate websites, and social media content produced by selected textile firms between 2019 and 2025. The study is guided by three objectives: to identify and classify greenwashing practices in environmental claims, to examine the linguistic and rhetorical strategies used to legitimize these claims, and to explore the relationship between greenwashing intensity and the construction of environmental legitimacy. A purposive sample of medium and large textile firms was selected, and environmental claim units were coded using established greenwashing typologies, including vagueness, no proof, irrelevance, hidden trade-off, lesser of two evils, fibbing, and false labels. The analysis also examined legitimation strategies such as authorization, rationalization, moral evaluation, and mythopoesis. Findings indicate that vagueness, lack of evidence, and selective disclosure are among the most common greenwashing practices, particularly in website and social media communications. Firms frequently employ regulatory references, technical language, ethical appeals, and success narratives to enhance the credibility of environmental claims. The study further reveals that higher levels of greenwashing are often associated with weaker textual environmental legitimacy. By combining CDA with greenwashing analysis, this research contributes to the growing literature on corporate sustainability communication and offers insights into environmental accountability within Pakistan's textile sector.