The study, published in SN Social Sciences by Adriana Kirley Santiago Monteiro of the Federal University of Piauí and colleagues, applied critical discourse analysis (CDA) to the 2022 ESG reports of the two Brazilian-born companies ranked as the most responsible in the country’s cosmetics and perfumery sector: Natura and Grupo Boticário. Using the Merco ESG responsibility ranking, a benchmark corporate reputational assessment in Latin America, the team identified four sector leaders, Natura, Grupo Boticário, Avon and L’Oréal, but excluded Avon and L’Oréal because they originate in the United States and France respectively. The remaining two reports were read in full, coded and annotated with the help of ATLAS.ti software, a qualitative analysis tool the authors describe as providing transparency, systematicity and rigor to social science research.

The theoretical backbone of the analysis is the three-dimensional model of discourse developed by linguist Norman Fairclough, which treats any text as simultaneously a linguistic object, a product of discursive practices such as production and distribution, and a form of social practice embedded in ideology and power. In practical terms, the researchers examined everything from vocabulary, grammar and politeness to intertextuality, the way a text connects to other texts, and interdiscursivity, the way it borrows from the discourses of other communities. At the deepest level, they asked how the reports construct realities, which aspects of the social process they emphasize, and which they quietly push into the background. This layered approach matters because, as the authors argue, language is not a neutral container for facts but a constitutive element of reality itself, capable of maintaining or restructuring power relations when its ideological work goes unnoticed.

What the researchers found in the textual dimension of the reports was a deliberate blend of the informative and the persuasive. Both companies organize their documents into thematic sections, but rather than presenting dry managerial data, they intersperse policies and performance figures with narratives, photographs, testimonials, graphs and links. The result is a hybrid genre that informs while it persuades, meeting the demands of a heterogeneous audience that may include investors, suppliers, employees, policymakers and consumers encountering the reports through social media. Both firms deploy accessible language for social and environmental information alike, a notable finding because prior studies have shown that companies often bury environmental performance in complex prose, possibly because stricter reporting standards make that data harder to manipulate. The high readability of these two reports is consistent with evidence that better ESG performers tend to write more clearly, while weaker performers may use complexity as a smokescreen.

The reports also reveal subtle mechanisms of what Fairclough calls interactional control. Interactive navigation lets readers prioritize topics and change the sequence of information, yet arrows, “learn more” notices, color schemes, icons and animated graphics steer attention toward the meanings the companies intend to construct. Natura reinforces its environmental identity through iconography, pairing symbols of finance with leaves: the icon representing investors combines a branch of leaves with a pile of coins, while the icon for consultants links a human figure, coins and foliage in a cycle. The company even likens its ESG report to the mirror of the Negro River, suggesting that, like the water, the document faithfully reflects the company’s actions throughout 2022, a metaphor that simultaneously asserts transparency and reaffirms the brand’s bond with nature. Grupo Boticário, meanwhile, builds an emotional framework around its packaging take-back program, displaying a trash can stickered with the phrase “Your empty packaging is full of love for the future” above the silhouette of one of its perfumes, surrounded by green paper hearts and a circular arrow.

At the level of discursive practice, the analysis found that both companies distribute their reports proactively rather than reactively, publishing them in full on their websites and pointing readers to complementary platforms. The reports circulate across multiple media and mix discursive genres, incorporating questions, invitations, calls to action, hashtags and slogans such as Grupo Boticário’s #umabelezadefuturo, which means “a beauty of the future.” Personal pronouns like “we,” “you” and “everyone” create closeness with readers, while Natura uses testimonials and stories to forge emotional connection and a sense of belonging. Crucially, both companies anchor their credibility through intertextuality, invoking the United Nations, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Compact. The researchers note that such appeals to external authorities can legitimize business discourse and conceal possible contradictions between corporate activity and genuine sustainable development, especially when the reports do not explain how those external principles were applied or verified.

The deepest layer of analysis, discourse as social practice, exposed the ideological work underlying the companies’ priorities. Natura highlights climate action, nature regeneration, social impact, circularity and value distribution, while Grupo Boticário directs its practices toward packaging and waste, water, biodiversity, climate emergencies and emissions, energy, renewable ingredients, diversity in the value chain and community development. Both discourses foreground social and environmental identity while overshadowing financial and economic aspects, a pattern the authors say mirrors major global companies that emphasize contributions and commitments while distancing themselves from the environmental and social impacts of their own economic activity. This shift extends to imagery: both companies replace pictures of irreversible environmental disasters with images of preservation and community integration, promoting a restructuring of the roles that companies and society play in discourse.

One of the study’s most striking findings concerns passivation, the grammatical treatment of people as recipients rather than agents. Companies emerge as active subjects of social and environmental causes, while surrounding communities appear either as objects of corporate action, as in Grupo Boticário’s statement that suppliers and neighboring communities “are subject to periodic assessments of human rights violations,” or as beneficiaries, as in Natura’s commitment to “ensure decent wages for employees and create livelihoods for local communities.” The researchers also identify what they call opportunity language, a strategy that transforms political problems into management challenges. When addressing risks, both reports enumerate opportunities for improvement alongside their commitments and mitigation practices, positioning the companies as allies of society. The authors interpret this as a means of maintaining hegemonic positions, using symbols, narratives and metaphors to tell a safe story about the causes and consequences of business actions, particularly relevant given that Natura previously faced fines over the irregular use of Brazilian biodiversity and Grupo Boticário had to clarify possible responsibility for degradation in a reserve area.

The analysis also catalogued three categories of discursive weakness: hasty generalization, false causality and appeal to authority. Hasty generalization appeared more frequently in Grupo Boticário’s report, for example when the company announced the gradual replacement of only “some” animal-derived components yet concluded that its products are composed of biodiversity inputs without providing sufficient data for verification. False causality surfaced more often in Natura’s report, notably in a statement that the company must attend to vectors of value creation that are “not just financial value, but economic value,” a framing the researchers say wrongly implies the two are mutually exclusive and overlooks social, environmental and cultural value. Appeals to authority, mainly references to the SDGs and the Global Compact, appeared with equivalent frequency in both reports, lending credibility without always explaining how the references were operationalized. The authors caution that such weaknesses do not prove intentional misconduct; they may reflect short-term adaptation pressures or simple lack of knowledge.

The study’s authors are candid about its limits. Because it relies exclusively on self-reported ESG documents, the findings primarily reflect the companies’ intended narratives rather than independently verified sustainability outcomes, and the researchers recommend that future work triangulate reports with interviews of suppliers, workers and communities, along with direct observation. Still, the contribution is significant: applying critical discourse analysis to ESG reports in the Brazilian cosmetics sector is an underexplored approach, and the findings illuminate how organizations in emerging economies manage their socioenvironmental image under intense stakeholder scrutiny. For companies, the practical message is that linguistic precision matters, since hasty generalizations and false causal framings can undermine even well-intentioned sustainability strategies and feed perceptions of greenwashing. For the rest of us, the lesson is simpler and more unsettling: the fight over sustainability is fought not only in supply chains and laboratories but in prepositions, pronouns and pictures, and reading corporate green claims critically may be as important as reading them at all.

Subject of Research: Critical discourse analysis of social and environmental sustainability narratives in the ESG reports of Brazilian cosmetics companies

Article Title: The discourse of social and environmental sustainability in Brazilian cosmetics companies

Article References: Monteiro, A. K. S., Dias, G. P., & Mesquita, R. F. D. (2026). The discourse of social and environmental sustainability in Brazilian cosmetics companies. SN Social Sciences, 6(9), Article 435. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-026-01689-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43545-026-01689-x

Keywords: ESG reporting, critical discourse analysis, corporate sustainability, greenwashing, Brazilian cosmetics industry, Natura, Grupo Boticário, corporate social responsibility, Fairclough, sustainable development goals, corporate communication, stakeholder transparency