Reporting Sustainability in the Oil Sector: Transparency or Greenwashing?

Communication is fundamental in marketing. Pinske and Dommisse (2009) have highlighted that it is essential for consumers because they need to be informed about the benefits sprung by their responsible choices in terms of purchases; moreover it is important to improve a company’s reputation (Bronn and Vrioni, 2011; Mark-Herbert and Von Schantz, 2007). For this reason sustainability report, considering its communicational function, can be deemed also a tool for marketers. According to Lozano and Huisingh (2001) sustainability report “is a voluntary activity with two general purposes: (1) to assess the current state of an organisation’s economic, environmental and social dimensions, and (2) to communicate a company’s efforts and Sustainability progress to their stakeholders. However, these purposes do not consider the time dimension, nor the interactions among the different sustainability dimensions”. Obviously companies can choose between two ways: transparency, showing real data, or greenwashing, masking their real attitude and relying on appearance, with risks for reputation and boycott actions (Glazer, Kanniainen and Poutvaara, 2010). This research is focused on the oil sector, characterized by different sustainability problems, both in an environmental and a social perspective.