The significance of corporate environmentalism towards multinational companies in Malaysia: analysing environmental communications and public perceptions of Nestlé Malaysia and PETRONAS

The recent prominence of the climate crisis has prompted corporations to incorporate environmental initiatives to their corporate social responsibility strategies. Corporations create regular social media content to communications the efforts of these initiatives to stakeholders. Stakeholder reactio...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Foo, Tun Xiang
Format: Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/78001/
Description
Summary:The recent prominence of the climate crisis has prompted corporations to incorporate environmental initiatives to their corporate social responsibility strategies. Corporations create regular social media content to communications the efforts of these initiatives to stakeholders. Stakeholder reactions to the social media content may indicate greenwashing in which efforts to communicate environmental initiatives are disproportionate to the impacts of the initiatives. This study investigates corporate greenwashing by multinational corporations in Malaysia through social media content analysis. Using Nestlé and PETRONAS as case studies, it employs a mixed-method approach, analysing both companies' sustainability reports and social media content on Facebook, along with audience perceptions. The analysis of the corporations’ content strategies reveals a focus on packaging waste reduction (Nestlé) and net-zero transition (PETRONAS). While social media content highlighted influential and impactful environmental efforts, questionnaire user perception suggests limited awareness of the initiatives. This makes it difficult to determine greenwashing. The findings suggest corporations need improved social media strategies to raise awareness and eco-consciousness among Malaysian social media users. Further research is needed on following up with Nestlé and PETRONAS on their long-term environmental goals over the next decades.