Research seminar: Diffusion, obsolescence and recycling – theorizing the cycle of conceptual development in corporate sustainability

How do promises for sustainable businesses persist and grow despite their apparent and persistent failure in the context of Anthropocene? In this article I draw on Boltanski & Chiapello’s New Spirit of Capitalism and the literature on essentially contested concepts to explore the cycle of conceptual creation, diffusion, obsolescence, and replacement within the corporate sustainability literature. I argue that in order to persist amidst recurrent failure, the field of corporate sustainability needs to be regularly fed by academics and consultants through cycles of conceptual renewal. This cycle, I argue, is essential to achieve collective amnesia and to re-create hope, both of which are necessary to sustain engagement and further develop the field of corporate sustainability in spite of its past, present -and future?- failures. I take various examples by using the literature on CSR, circular economy and regenerative economy literature to sustain this argument. This paper contributes by explaining how mechanisms of inertia are linked with cycles of conceptual renewal, thus casting a new light on conceptual advancement in the field. I also contribute to the debates on capitalism and critique by showing how a ‘metacritique’ such as the ecological critique, while structurally incompatible with the principle of accumulation which stands at the core of capitalism, can still be re-appropriated or neutralized by capitalism through processes of amnesia and conceptual obsolescence.

Keywords:
Conceptual Renewal, Anthropocene, Organizational Inertia, Amnesia

Aurélien Acquier bio

Aurélien Acquier is a Full Professor in sustainability at ESCP Business School, Paris Campus. His work explores how sustainability and planetary boundaries impact management research and practice. In particular he explores how sustainability related concepts impact the corporation and the management of complex organizational forms (transnational corporations, network organizations, platform capitalism or sharing economy). He is the author of several articles (published in Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society, Organization Studies, m@n@gement, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, etc.) and various volumes, chapters and books. At ESCP Business School, he has been Dean for Sustainability Transition between 2018 and 2022, has co-directed the Deloitte ESCP Chair in Circular Economy between 2020 and 2023, and is now the Scientific Director of the ESCP Sustainability Institute.