Narrative of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Context of Climate Change: Transformation of Latvian Business Environment

Abstract: As the European Green Deal has become the European Union’s ambition to become a world leader in addressing climate change, and the biggest half of the world`s population consider climate change (CCh) as one of the most serious global problems today, more and more entrepreneurs must communicate about their actions towards their climate goals.
This study focuses on business narratives in Latvia to uncover business perception of lowcarbon development perspectives and see how entrepreneurs can act as agents triggering change in production. Mixed methods research design was used, using both qualitative (narrative analysis) and quantitative (contentanalysis) research methods to extract the narratives.
It was concluded that all six sectors had a unifying narrative which states that Latvian business environment transforms, and entrepreneurs have already become or aim to become environmentally responsible in the nearest future. Along with other sector-specific narratives we can conclude that enterprises have the potential to lead towards low-carbon economy by constructing an enabling discursive environment. By communicating about low-carbon transition and the solutions that every individual can implement in their daily lives, and doing it in informative, educational, and entertaining way, energy enterprises can attract consumers’ attention, enrich their knowledge, and promote climate-friendly choices.
Keywords: climate change, Latvia, strategic narrative, business, marketing communication.
Acknowledgments: this research has been supported by the Latvian Council of Science within the fundamental and applied research project No. lzp-2020/1-0047 “From indifference to making difference in climate policy: improving the interaction between political narrative and societal perceptions in Latvia”.