Building a sustainability éthos in institutional advertisements published in a Paranaguá city newspaper, Brazil

Abstract

The National Environmental Licensing Policy establishes guidelines for implementing informational and educational actions in Brazil, including the requirement for public and private companies to promote and disseminate environmental education programs, especially when their activities have a potentially polluting impact. In cities like Paranaguá (PR), where there is a high concentration of enterprises with significant environmental impact potential, these actions occur regularly throughout the year but intensify during Environment Week, with events promoted by public, private, and third-sector institutions. This study analyzes the construction of sustainability ethos in institutional advertisements published in the local print newspaper during this period. The corpus comprises publications released between 2018 and 2021, all collected in the month of June. The analysis, based on argumentation studies, aims to understand how institutions construct an image of socio-environmental responsibility through the textual and discursive resources used in the advertisements. Thus, the study seeks to contribute to reflections on the meanings being produced around sustainability and the relationship between institutional discourse and the environment in the context of local media.