Research project The Perversion of Sustainability by Marketing: Excess, Simulacra, and Ecological Terminality
Can sustainability efforts contribute to the very problems they are meant to solve? This project examines how well-intentioned initiatives can be perverted when they become part of companies’ regular operations and are subordinated to the same logic of growth that they were originally intended to counteract.
Recycled clothing, reduced food waste, and refurbished electronics are presented as solutions to environmental problems. But what happens to these initiatives when they become part of companies’ regular operations, where sales and growth take center stage?
This project examines how well-intentioned sustainability initiatives risk being perverted: from an attempt to reduce environmental impact to activities that instead support continued production and consumption. A green label or a recycling program may take on greater significance as a symbol of responsibility than as a concrete environmental measure.
We are studying this trend in the fashion, food, and electronics industries. By analyzing companies’ communications and documents, interviewing stakeholders, and examining how materials and products are handled, we aim to understand the mechanisms driving this change. We compare these findings with initiatives that are developed in different ways. Our goal is to deepen our understanding of the relationship between marketing, overproduction, and sustainability.