Pride and fear: Emotions in sustainability

Abstract

<p>Although researching emotions is not a new topic, they have not received much attention in the literature on sustainability. We add to this narrow field by addressing a research question: ‘what emotions do employees have when they describe the sustainability work of their employer?’ We interviewed 19 employees of a large manufacturing company. Our results show that the employees had both positive and negative emotions while they described the sustainability work conducted by their employer: the positive emotions related to pride and the negative to fear. Both these emotions covered the product, ownership, their business, suppliers, and society at large. The aspects the employees are proud about are certainly aspects on which sustainability work can be<br />easily built. Concurrently, the aspects of fear are equally important, as they might hinder the success of sustainability work.<br /></p>