Work in sustainability crisis: The ecological spirit of capitalism and the spectre of sleepwalking

Abstract

The structures and meanings of work are a central question in the sustainability crisis. However, scholars have recently voiced concerns about the limited amount of research on those topics. In responding to this lacuna, this article explores how sustainability professionals in business organisations make sense of work and its transformation towards sustainability, how sustainability demands are seen as challenging existing business and management practices, and what kinds of conflicts this gives rise to. The article analyses interviews conducted at companies involved in the Climate Leadership Coalition in Finland and identifies four discourses through which work and sustainability are articulated: trailblazing, experimentation, passion and sleepwalking. The first three discourses seek to reconcile the contradiction between economic and ecological interests with the `ecological spirit of capitalism', which helps professionals legitimate their actions and negotiate the tension between sustainability and a profit orientation. The fourth discourse of sleepwalking challenges the optimistic visions of the other three. It proposes that the ecologisation of work would require a more transformative approach that neither companies nor societies seem prepared to adopt. The spectre of sleepwalking haunts the ecological spirit of capitalism and serves as a reminder of its potential fragility.