Tech for a Better Planet: A Corpus-based Analysis of the Environmental Disclosure in CSR Reports of Huawei

Abstract

The CSR report, as a way for stakeholders and the public to understand and audit a company's practices of social responsibilities, plays an increasingly important role in the construction of the corporate image. Aimed at exploring how Huawei addresses global environmental issues and constructs its green and responsible image as a business, this paper studies the environmental disclosure in Huawei's CSR reports from 2010 to 2019. Taking Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Kress and van Leeuwen's visual grammar as theoretical frameworks and the corpus software AntConc as the analytical tool, this study tries to investigate how the language and images are used to convey Huawei's environmental concept and build its identity. It is shown that Huawei, by using words and images related with nature, energy conservation as well as green products, highlights the role of technology in solving environmental problems to leave the public an impression of a responsible corporate. However, Huawei doesn't perform well in terms of guiding the public to participate in natural protection because people's environmental role is marginalized and natural problems are hedged in the reports. It's hoped that the findings can help companies to construct their environmental reports more effectively which will not only promote their reputation but also guide the public to protect the planet.