An ‘incitement to discourse’: benchmarking as a springboard to sustainable development

Delyse Springett

Business Strategy and the Environment, 2003, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Benchmarking, while belonging to the array of instruments associated with eco‐efficiency, eco‐modernism and ‘political sustainability’, provides a way in which corporations can be held to account in terms of their environmental and social responsibility. New Zealand lacked such benchmarks until the annual Survey of Corporate Environmental Responsiveness was introduced for top companies by turnover in 1999, exposing the myth of ‘clean and green’ New Zealand as far as environmental management of business was concerned, but providing a measure that has become a driver for many companies. The paper discusses outcomes of the benchmarking survey and describes how it has been employed as a Foucauldian ‘incitement to discourse’ with a focus group of participating companies, engaging them in a more dialectical discourse of sustainable development based in Critical Theory and perspectives from Foucault. Maori speak of their ‘turangawaewae’–having a ‘place to stand’. The survey provided the broader research programme with that place to stand in terms of creating a meaningful position for the researchers, and a degree of legitimacy, within the business context. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.

Date: 2003
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