Sustainability Discourse in the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods Sector – A comparison between Procter & Gamble and Unilever

Abstract: Environmental protection has gained a lot of attention in recent years. People, governments and NGOs understand that our economic growth needs to be sustainable and respect the ecosystem. Everyone has a role to play in the planet conservation, from consumers to industries. This paper investigates on a linguistic level how the fast-moving consumer goods companies such as Procter & Gamble and Unilever communicate about their sustainability profile, as well as the differences and similarities in their communications. Lastly, I analysed the companies’ sustainability goals and how they relate to those established by the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). My methodology was a Faircloughian textual analysis of each company’s official web pages with a focus on their sustainability section. The results show that each company addresses their impact on the environment on different sustainability goals. To resolve the environmental challenges, both companies count on innovative technologies to improve their products so they become eco-friendly. This study’s implication is the importance of words choices in the companies’ sustainability discourse, in order to convey clearly what measures are applied to diminish their environmental footprint.