The impact of the SDGs on non-financial corporate communications: an analysis of CaixaBank reports (2013-2019)

Abstract

Academic interest in corporate discourse has been increasing in recent years. This paper examines how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have influenced the structure of the discourse employed in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, taking as a specific case the non-financial reports produced by CaixaBank. We employed a hybrid analytical method, using some techniques from corpus linguistics and framing analysis. In the non-financial reports from 2013 to 2017, a clear master frame was found, involving a negative evaluation of the influence of the economic crisis. In contrast, discourse concerning the SDGs forms the backbone of the 2018 and 2019 reports. From the point of view of linguistic/discursive methodology, this study shows how the use of corpus linguistic techniques in combination with framing analysis can facilitate an examination of the changes in corporate discourse on sustainability, providing an effective method of studying non-financial reports.