CSR reporting in aviation : substantive actions or greenwashing? : case Lufthansa & Finnair
Authors
Date
2021Access restrictions
The author has not given permission to make the work publicly available electronically. Therefore the material can be read only at the archival workstation at Jyväskylä University Library (https://kirjasto.jyu.fi/collections/archival-workstation).
Copyright
This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gained importance and the expectations of stakeholders have increased. Better CSR reporting might give the company a competitive advantage over their peers and enhance corporate reputation. Motives behind CSR reporting could be answering to stakeholder claims, gaining legitimacy, or signalling about good behaviour. The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the current CSR reporting in aviation industry and to examine, what kind of aspects Lufthansa Group and Finnair highlight in their corporate responsibility reports and whether we can detect greenwashing. This is a comparative case study regarding Lufthansa Group’s and Finnair’s CSR reporting and the data is mainly collected from their sustainability and annual reports. The research method used was qualitative content analysis which focuses on the characteristics of language as communication. I also used summative approach to qualitative content analysis and counted and compared the keywords used in their reports. The theoretical part of this thesis will focus on CSR and CSR reporting according to Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards. I will also investigate previous research regarding greenwashing and focus on aviation industry specific research. The findings of the study were that emissions reduction was the dominant environmental theme. Regarding the social aspects highlighted, both airlines emphasised their goals to increase the share of women in management. The sustainability report of Lufthansa was more structured and comprehensive than Finnair’s and the data was easier to find. However, it seems that Finnair has made actions towards sustainability, but the problem arises with the communication of these actions and future goals. Some of the aspects can be viewed as greenwashing, such as withholding data to make valid comparisons, or highlighting aspects that do not offer viable solutions to the issues. However, the perception of greenwashing is subjective, and I can only point out some shortcomings regarding the reporting of these two airlines.
...


Keywords
Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
- Pro gradu -tutkielmat [25581]
Related items
Showing items with similar title or keywords.
-
Not just for the sake of a report : enhancing corporate social responsibility reporting by involving stakeholders
Jantunen, Pirjo (2015)The purpose of this study was to find out if it is possible to improve the case organisation’s corporate social responsibility reporting by involving stakeholders. The research was conducted as a case study in Helen Ltd, ... -
Corporate social responsibility and community development in a mining region in India : issues of power, control and co-option
Ranta-Tyrkkö, Satu; Jojo, Bipin (Policy Press, 2019) -
The impact of corporate social responsibility initiative on sustainable livelihood capitals of cocoa farmers in Ghana : a case study of cocoa livelihood program in Ahafo Ano South District
Obeng, Godfred Adduow (2015)The Cocoa Livelihood Programme (CLP), an initiative of corporate organizations in collaboration with the World Cocoa Foundation (WFC) in line with their corporate social responsibility (CSR), was introduced in Ghana by ... -
Responsible Investment : Taxes and Paradoxes
Knuutinen, Reijo; Pietiläinen, Matleena (De Gruyter Open, 2017)Taxes have become an issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR), but the role of taxation is to some extent an ambiguous and controversial issue in the CSR framework. Similarly, another unclear question is what role ... -
A systematic literature review on employee relations with CSR : State of art and future research agenda
Onkila, Tiina; Sarna, Bhavesh (John Wiley & Sons, 2022)Within recent years, the literature on employee–CSR relations has grown significantly. However, the research is fragmented throughout various journals and disciplines, and we still lack a comprehensive literature review ...