Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the semiotic infrastructure of corporate sustainability through board meetings, staff meetings, conferences and presentations at a Swiss business organization.

Paper long abstract:

Kockelman (2010, 2012, 2016) has described at least three ways in which infrastructure can be understood: 1) in its conventional usage as roads and bridges and fiber optic cables; 2) in a more general sense as the networks of human and non-human actors that facilitate processes like production, exchange and consumption; and 3) in the most general sense as the "relations between relations" that undergird the creation of meaning. In the context of corporate sustainability, characterized by its reliance on market-based 'solutions' to mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic climate change and environmental degradation, meetings (from high level board meetings to brief staff meetings over coffee) become highly contested sites for defining and re-defining what it means to be sustainable. Some scholars have argued that 'sustainability' has become an "empty signifier," rendered meaningless by its liberal application in settings that are too diverse and contradictory (cf. Milne and Gray 2013, Brown 2016). Based on ten months of fieldwork in a Swiss sustainable business organization and a (broadly) Peircean interpretation of semiosis, I argue instead that 'sustainability' not only remains potently significant, but that its meaning can indeed be reclaimed and renegotiated to serve a more equitable future.