Branding the green games: discursive power and communicative inequality in Olympic sponsorship narratives

Wei Ding

Social Responsibility Journal, 2026, 1-22

Abstract: PurposeThis study aims to investigate how Olympic TOP sponsors construct green narratives across corporate, media and social media platforms and how these narratives contribute to communicative inequality in global environmental discourse. It explores the symbolic and rhetorical strategies used to project sustainability and interrogates the power structures that enable certain actors to dominate environmental meaning-making in the Olympic context.Design/methodology/approachThis research uses a qualitative multimethod approach combining critical discourse analysis and qualitative content analysis. It analyses data from 10 Olympic TOP sponsors across environmental, social and governance (ESG) reports, news media and social media related to the Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024 Olympic cycles, with focused data collection conducted between March 2023 and August 2024.FindingsThis study identifies three dominant greenwashing strategies – symbolic commitment, technological deflection and corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance theatre – varying across sectors. It highlights discursive patterns such as future deferral, selective framing and omission of dissent. Results show that corporate sponsors leverage symbolic alignment with the Olympics to shape sustainability discourse while excluding independent verification and marginalised voices, reinforcing communicative inequality.Originality/valueThis research reframes greenwashing as a systemic discursive phenomenon embedded in symbolic and institutional power, rather than isolated deception. It introduces “communicative inequality” as a critical lens for examining ESG narratives and offers a new framework for analysing sustainability discourse in mega-event sponsorships. This study contributes to both environmental communication and CSR literature by highlighting the politics of visibility, voice and legitimacy in corporate green storytelling.

Keywords: Greenwashing; Olympic sponsorship; Communicative inequality; Sportwashing; Sustainability communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:srjpps:srj-11-2025-1149

DOI: 10.1108/SRJ-11-2025-1149

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