Creating Shared Value: A Social Semiotic Analysis of ESG Discourse on Social Media

For decades, institutions, businesses, and individuals have engaged in discourse regarding their commitment to building a better world. This new rhetoric is the result of corporate peer pressure, increased activism and consumer engagement on social media, and growing risks for reputational damage and financial impacts on corporations. Among all business sectors, luxury has historically been associated with qualities such as overconsumption and social stratification which do not naturally align with sustainability; however, it has been integrating environmental, social, and governance factors into corporate discourse. This study is concerned with the semiotic construction of meanings related to the renegotiation of the oxymoronic concept of “sustainable luxury.” The authors adopt a social semiotic approach to analyse Instagram posts shared by luxury brands from 2019 to 2021. The analysis identifies the semiotic resources involved in the meaning-making process enabling the coexistence of luxury and sustainable discourse. Preliminary findings show how the discourse shared on Instagram constructs environmental, social, and governance claims by deploying a diversified set of semiotic resources enacting both conceptual and narrative processes, intertextual references, cohesive devices such as colour, and medium-specific features to articulate a call for collective action and play the role of a catalyst for certain causes. In this vein, brands discursively construct an alignment between their financial ambitions and long-term value creation for society to advocate, influence, and drive the sustainability discourse. © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Maida Kosatica and Sean P. Smith; individual chapters, the contributors.