After Greenwashing

4 June 2014

Time: 4:00pm
Venue: Fogg Lecture Theatre, Mile End Campus

After Greenwashing: Symbolic Corporate Environmentalism and Society Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP), May 2014

4pm-5pm presentation and discussion
5pm-6pm drinks reception
Presentation by the author, Professor Frances Bowen (School of Business and Management), with responses by the CUP Book Series Editors Professors Alberto Aragon-Correa (University of Surrey) and Tom Lyon (University of Michigan, USA)

Businesses show their environmental awareness through green buildings, eco-labels, sustainability reports, industry pledges and clean technologies. When are these symbols wasteful corporate spin, and when do they signal authentic environmental improvements? In this book, Professor Frances Bowen provides the first systematic analysis of the drivers and consequences of symbolic corporate environmentalism. She addresses the indirect cost of companies' symbolic actions and develops a new concept of the 'social energy penalty' - the cost to society when powerful corporate actors limit the social conversation on environmental problems and their solutions.

Frances Bowen is professor of innovation studies at Queen Mary University of London, specializing in corporate strategy and environmental governance. She is the 2014 Chair of the Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE) Division of the Academy of Management, and recently held an ESRC Knowledge Exchange Fellowship to work with Defra and the Environment Agency on regulating for a sustainable economy.

Tom Lyon holds the Dow Chair of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce at the University of Michigan. He is a research pioneer in using economic analysis to understand corporate environmental strategy, including information disclosure, voluntary programmes and greenwash.

Alberto Aragon-Correa is professor of management at Surrey Business School. He is Editor in Chief of the leading business and sustainability journal Organization & Environment, and the current president of the Group for Research on Organizations and the Natural Environment (GRONEN).
This event is free to all, but please book tickets  in advance if you wish to attend.
For more information on the School of Business and Management visit  www.busman.qmul.ac.uk