By Meri Frig

Nordic countries frequently leverage the idea of being sustainability frontrunners in their official communication, including nation branding materials (for example, This is Finland and Focus Denmark). This summer, Good News from Finland acclaimed “Finland puts sustainability top of the agenda” (Sommers, 2020) and Visit Denmark , via The Telegraph, stated that “Denmark’s capital has long put sustainability the top of its agenda, as have many of its inhabitants” (Wilmott, 2020).

Officially since the launch of its country brand report titled “Mission for Finland – How Finland will solve the world’s most wicked problems”, Finland is strategically positioning itself as the location well-equipped to generate sustainable solutions for the world’s challenges and problems. Good News from Finland continues this tried-and-tested narrative by telling the world that “living sustainably and in harmony with the environment is one of the core Finnish values”. The article goes on to celebrate Finnish companies’ tackling of the climate crisis.

The Telegraph article positions Copenhagen as the greenest city in the world. Accordingly, readers are encouraged to visit the country for the purpose of spectacular green experiences, such as swimming in a busy urban harbor and skiing down the roof of a green-energy power station. And if you are “seeking inspiration and solutions for a sustainable future”, you can head to stateofgreen.com to “collaborate with Danish expertise and let us accelerate the transition towards a greener future together”.

Our study “Nation Branding as Sustainability Governance: A Comparative Case Analysis”, found that the two nations both emphasize principles of efficiency and renewability when they present something as sustainable. But while Finland openly seeks to attract firms to the local business environment, Denmark is positioned internationally as an experimental laboratory for green solutions, with the best competences in architecture and design, and an active member and collaborator in public and private intergovernmental organizations and initiatives (Frig & Sorsa, 2020).

Because nation branding communication is produced with the participation and contribution of a multitude of actors, the result is communication that aims to please the largest possible audience or, at minimum, convince the most influential investors. Hardly anyone opposes cleantech innovations or pictures of children running and adventuring (safely!) on green fields.

This is in direct contrast to another form of sustainability communications, corporate activism, which includes taking visible and vocal stances on debated socio-political issues (Olkkonen & Jääskeläinen, 2019). Corporate activism does not aim to please (LUT University, 2020). Nevertheless, corporations are currently increasingly engaging in corporate activism as brand managers believe that even if certain actions and messages might provoke some people, corporate activism is likely to lead to increased brand loyalty. This requires all organizations and institutions to stay on the pulse of what is going on in the world.

For example, citizen-consumers are calling for organizations to be more inclusive and diversity is now understood as essential for success (McKinsey, 2020). The Finnish government announced recently that intersectional feminism is a core component of its programme (Finnish Government, 2020). The countries that put sustainability top of the agenda would be well-advised to make diversity and intersectional feminism visible in their sustainability communications because sustainability dimensions (economic, ecological, political and cultural) are increasingly understood to be deeply interconnected (Pessi, 2016).

Visual images function as powerful tools when envisioning and building pathways towards a sustainable future. The articles in The Telegraph and Good News from Finland ask the readers to embrace the green scene, which is illustrated with (often corporate-provided) images that include green leaves. The questions, whose story is being told, what kinds of people and settings we can recognize in pictures, and who gets to define and frame what “sustainability” means and looks like, continue to be on the top of the agenda for sustainability scholars and advocates.

While skiing down the roof of a green-energy power station, driving a solar-powered boat, and fine dining in an all-organic restaurant sound like fun, an important question remains – who does the sustainability narrative include and cater to? It is time to unlearn certain boundaries of what sustainability looks like: in a world where the most progressive states actively promote these unproblematized visions of idyllic sustainability, where can our hope be for reconstructing a better future on the basis of actual sustainability challenges?

Reference:

Frig, M. & Sorsa, V-P. (2020). Nation Branding as Sustainability Governance: A Comparative Case Analysis. Business & Society, 59(5).

LUT University (2020, July). Yritysaktivismi valtavirtaistuu vauhdilla, osoitti Black Lives Matter -liike: Laura Olkkoselle aiheen tutkiminen on unelmatyö [Corporate activism enters the mainstream at a rapid pace, showed the Black Lives Matter movement: For Laura Olkkonen, researching the topic is a dream job].Retrieved from: https://www.lut.fi/uutiset/-/asset_publisher/h33vOeufOQWn/content/yritysaktivismi-valtavirtaistuu-vauhdilla-osoitti-black-lives-matter-liike-laura-olkkoselle-aiheen-tutkiminen-on-unelmatyo

McKinsey & Company (2018, January). Delivering through diversity. Retrieved from: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/delivering-through-diversity

Olkkonen, L., & Jääskeläinen, J. (2019). Corporate Activism: Exploring Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Communication. Academy of Management Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2019.17350abstract

Pessi, A. (2016, June). What is the social dimension of sustainability? Retrieved from: https://www.sitra.fi/en/blogs/what-social-dimension-sustainability/

Sommers, M. (2020, June). Finland puts sustainability top of the agenda. Retrieved from: https://www.goodnewsfinland.com/feature/finland-puts-sustainability-at-the-top-of-the-agenda/

Finnish Government (2020, April). Suomi tasa-arvon kärkimaaksi. [Finland to become a global champion of gender equality]. Retrieved from: https://valtioneuvosto.fi/documents/1271139/20825107/Valtioneuvoston_periaatep%C3%A4%C3%A4t%C3%B6s_hallituksen_tasa-arvo-ohjelma_2020-2023+.pdf

Wilmott, J. (2020, February) Have you been to the world’s greenest city? Retrieved from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/discovering-hygge-in-copenhagen/worlds-greenest-city/