CfP: Communicating Green - Organizational Communication and Environment

"COMMUNICATING GREEN - Organizational Communication and Environment:
Evolution of Approaches and Change of Practices"
Brussels, 18 and 19 November 2010

Main Organisers:  Thierry Libaert, Andrea Catellani
LASCO (Laboratory for the Analysis of Organisational Communication
Systems), Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium

The purpose of this international and multi-disciplinary conference is to
explore organizational communication on environmental issues. The aim is
to compare different scientific points of views. This comparison also
intends to involve the contribution of professionals who are protagonists
of this type of communication.

Theoretic and critical dimension.

It is evident that communication cannot limit itself to “transmit” some
environmental “content”, just in order to improve the reputation of an
organisation or to influence practices and cultural forms. Contact with
the constellation of environmental values emphasises the instrumental
nature (sometimes in the form of greenwashing) of this communication in
its actual form. Therefore, this conference wants to explore the
theoretical foundations, and the variants, of a possible “organizational
and business sustainable communication ecology”; which also includes
deformations and instrumental uses of this type of communication.
Transparency, dialogue, discussion and cooperation in sense construction
between organisation and stakeholders are examples or this communicative
ecology, which is the possible correlative term of the environmental
ecology.
A dimension that is closely connected to this first research axe is the
one of the criteria useful to establish the environmental validity of
organizational communication. The conference aims to analyse different
ventures under way (in France, Belgium, Great Britain and other countries)
to define, for example, the “greenwashing” phenomena in advertising. How
to build effective criteria to identify and sanction non ethical and
misleading communicational practices? Which contributions can the
disciplines of information and communication studies bring to this issue?

Phenomenological dimension.

The conference wants to allow researches who are working on organisational
environmental communication, especially related to companies and
associations, to present their results, in order to establish an inventory
of ongoing researches. Which rhetorical, discursive, narrative forms, and
which forms of valorisation, are evoked, in texts addressed from the
organisation to its differing public? Which tendencies emerge in the use
of social networks and new interactive spaces, in relation to traditional
media, when is it necessary to mobilise a specific stakeholder on
environmental issues? How do environmental arguments influence the
evolution of crisis and the reaction of different stakeholders? How does
environmental communication influence the configuration of risks that can
lead to a crisis, or that can influence its evolution?
Most of all, the conference should find the means to verify relations
between environmental values and other values constellations that are
present in businesses discourse (first of all, economical efficiency). In
this light, the conference wants to understand how organisational identity
changes under the influence of the “grand narrative” on environment.

Epistemological and methodological dimension

Different disciplines and scientific approaches are implied in research on
environmental communication of organisations. Semiotic, semio-pragmatic,
mediologic, sociological approaches are implied (the latter in particular
in the case of the works of the socio-pragmatic school of Luc Boltanski).
More globally, qualitative approaches can contribute to the exploration of
forms of mediation of organisational communicative strategies.
Quantitative approaches can contribute to the validation of hypothesis on
the relevance and the effects of environmental communication, in order to
observe its impression on the public. Analysis of environmental
communicative forms opens the way towards a reflection on the relevance of
different research approaches.

INFORMATION FOR APPLICANTS

Papers propositions, in English or French, in the form of an abstract of
max. 2000 characters, have to be sent to the organisers of the conference
(Thierry Libaert, thierry.libaert AT uclouvain.be or Andrea Catellani,
andrea.catellani AT uclouvain.be) BEFORE 15 MAY 2010.

Propositions will be evaluated by the scientific committee. An answer to
the applicants will be sent before 15 June 2010.

The complete paper has to be sent to the organisers before 20 October 2010.

Proceedings of the conference will be published in a special number of the
scientific revue "Recherches en communication" (UCL), after a double-blind
peer-review.

Members of the scientific committee: Thierry Libaert (UCL), Andrea
Catellani (UCL), Thierry De Smedt (UCL), François Lambotte (ULB), Jacques
Walter (Metz), Jacquie L’Etang (Stirling), Dominique Bourg (Lausanne),
Gino Gramaccia (Bordeaux), Jordi Xifra (Barcelone), Valérie Swaen (UCL),
Béatrice Jalenques-Vigouroux (Toulouse), Marc Lits (UCL), Françoise
Bernard (Aix-Marseille I), Yves-Marie Abraham (HEC Montréal), Nicole
d'Almeida (Paris IV), Frédérique Aït-Touati (Sciences Po Paris), Emanuele
Invernizzi (Université IULM-Milan, EUPRERA), Ihlen Oyvind (BI Norwegian
School of Management).

Members of the organizing committee: Thierry Libaert (UCL), Andrea
Catellani (UCL), Audrey Crucifix (UCL), François Heinderyckx (ULB),
Christine Hambursin (UCL), Christine Donjean (UCL), Jean-Marie Pierlot
(UCL), Nicolas Baygert (UCL).

Confirmed speakers (provisional and partial list): Jean-Pascal van
Ypersele (GIEC, UCL), Nicole D'Almeida (Paris-Sorbonne), Ihlen Øyvind (BI
Norwegian School of Management), Magda Pieczka (Queen Margaret university,
Edinburgh), Gino Gramaccia (Bordeaux I), Valérie Swaen (UCL), Françoise
Bernard (Aix-Marseille I), Solange Tremblay (Université du Québec,
Montréal), Ujjef Communication et Entreprise (France).

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Website: http://www.uclouvain.be/309350.html

The conference will be held in Brussels, Belgium, on 18 and 19 November 2010.

Address of the conference: IHECS (Institut des Hautes Etudes des
Communications Sociales) - Rue de l'Etuve 58-60 - B-1000 Brussels, Belgium.
Detailed information on the room, access and hotel possibilities will be
given successively.

THE CONFERENCE HAS BEEN DECLARED "ENERGY DAY" OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
(SUSTAINABLE ENERGY PROGRAM)

The conference is organised with the help of:
Bytheway Creacom (sponsor) - EUPRERA (European Association of Public
Relations) - Hill & Knowlton - Interel - Ujjef Communication et Entreprise
- CAP Conseil - ABCI (Association belge de communication interne) - 3C
(Corporate Communication Community) - Communication publique Wallonie
Bruxelles.