CONSTRUCTING SUSTAINABILITY: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF TESLA’S SUSTAINABILITY REPORTS

This study examines how the paradigm of “green capitalism” is constructed at the level of corporate

discourse in the Anthropocene, a period marked by the deepening of the global ecological crisis, using the case of

Tesla Inc. Adopting a qualitative research paradigm, this study seeks to reveal the ideological and discursive

strategies through which the company legitimizes its sustainability narrative by analyzing the textual content of

Tesla’s impact reports (2020–2024) using Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse

Analysis (CDA), and by examining their visual components within the framework of Multimodality. The study

demonstrates that Tesla positions itself not merely as a conventional automobile manufacturer, but as a messianic

technological actor that “accelerates the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” In this context, the concept of

“sustainability” is detached from its original meaning and reframed around discourses of growth, technological

acceleration, and measurable “impact.” The findings indicate that the company presents its environmental

performance primarily through an emphasis on “zero emissions” during the use phase of its vehicles, while

discursively rendering invisible the ecological costs associated with battery production, mining activities, water

consumption, and supply chains. In Tesla’s reports, life-cycle analyses, graphs, and infographics function as

persuasive devices that reinforce technological optimism, while complex ecological problems are presented

through a reductionist and technocratic data-driven language. Emphases on artificial intelligence, automation,

and recycling further marginalize the political and social dimensions of the environmental crisis, producing a

post-political framework in which solutions are delegated almost entirely to technology. Ultimately, the study

reveals that, in the case of Tesla, a hegemonic process of rearticulation extending beyond conventional

greenwashing is at work, and that an advanced phase of green capitalism is being reproduced through corporate

discourse