Ecological legitimation strategies in Indonesian extractive corporations’ sustainability reports

Abstract

Extractive corporations have largely contributed to land degradation, water pollution, and conflicts with indigenous people. The widespread coverage of these issues has led to growing public scrutiny and demands for sustainable practices. To address the stakeholders’ expectations, extractive corporations create sustainability reports. In this discourse, legitimation is utilized as a language strategy to address the multifaceted problems. This study investigates the ecological legitimation strategies used by five Indonesian extractive corporations (PT ANTAM, PT-FI, PT Pertamina, PT KPC, and PT Vale Indonesia) in their 2023-2024 sustainability reports. The research aims to understand how these institutions employ legitimation strategies in environmental initiatives to gain public trust and to evaluate the true intentions behind their climate actions and sustainable practices. Assisted by a corpus-based approach using the software Sketch Engine, the study uses Van Leeuwen’s legitimation framework and Ecological Discourse Analysis (EDA) to analyze 182 concordance lines derived from corporate keywords and their collocations. The results reveal four legitimation strategies, with instrumental rationalization dominating the discourse with 86 clauses. The instrumental rationalization suggests a strong corporate focus on justifying actions through their own technical competence. This strategy is frequently used more than moral evaluation, mythopoesis, and authorization. It means that corporations start to develop internal expertise rather than relying on external proficiency. The discourse further highlights an eco-ambivalent narrative. While the reports acknowledge and serve initiatives to address ecological issues, the underlying motivation frames environmental efforts as measures to achieve human well-being and corporate longevity, taking an eco-centric mandate aside.