ABSTRACT
In March 2007, Fortune magazine summed up the distinguishing features of the three most admired companies in the U.S. that year. The verdict was clear: “Green” had come to mean something more than money. The magazine concluded that the list toppers General Electric, Starbucks, and Toyota had at least partly built their success on environmental strategies (Fisher, 2007). The integrated company General Electric touted its so-called “ecomagination” campaign; the coffee company Starbucks argued that it has taken an environmental leadership role; and Toyota’s hybrid engine models made inroads in the automobile market. The green theme has been echoed elsewhere too, as larger companies have paid increased attention to the environmental aspect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Bullis & Ie, 2007). The world’s largest company, WalMart, has also joined in (Wal-Mart, 2006). Still, only a few rhetorical studies of CSR have been conducted (i.e., Llewellyn, 1990; McMillian, 2007; Saiia & Cyphert, 2003). Furthermore, to this author’s knowledge, no one has published rhetorical studies of how corporations try to come across as “good environmental citizens.”
