Social Washing in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Firms

Abstract

The growing importance of social sustainability fosters firms to communicate their social impact, e.g., through environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting. Unfortunately, firms’ actions are often not consistent with their communication. When action and communication on social sustainability are incongruent, social washing emerges. This paper aims to provide an exploratory analysis, based on multiple case studies, to investigate the dimensions and practices of social washing in architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms. The results reveal that the main social washing practices in AEC are misleading assessment of impacts, cherry-picking, inadequate or absent involvement of the local community, and concealment of modern slavery. We propose a framework for operationalizing the analysis of social washing practices in AEC firms. Finally, we provide an overview of the dimensions and practices of social washing, laying the groundwork for future studies on the topic.