Towards a green, clean, resilient world? Organisational hypocrisy in the World Bank’s environmental agenda

Nicholas Nägele and Matthias Thiemann

Journal of Economic Policy Reform, 2025, vol. 28, issue 3, 344-370

Abstract: Development finance struggles with mainstreaming sustainability and environmental protection. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the World Bank, which has committed to extensive sustainability policies but whose environmental record is harshly criticised. This article aims at reconciling these contrasting observations. We utilise digital text analysis methodology to trace the treatment of environmental issues in World Bank rhetoric and policy. Our findings indicate that the World Bank’s environmental agenda is a case of organisational hypocrisy. While the bank presents sustainability and environmental protection as fundamental to its development approach, consideration of environmental issues in its policy planning documents remains marginal.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17487870.2025.2499279 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jpolrf:v:28:y:2025:i:3:p:344-370

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/GPRE19

DOI: 10.1080/17487870.2025.2499279

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Policy Reform is currently edited by Dr Judith Clifton

More articles in Journal of Economic Policy Reform from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().