The language of ESG sustainability reports of Chinese listed companies

Abstract Amid increasing global environmental concerns, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting has become standard practice for listed companies; few studies, however, analyzed Chinese ESG reports from an ecolinguistic perspective. This study employs quantitative corpus-assisted ecolinguistic methods to systematically compare vocabulary choices and discourse patterns in a corpus of 136 sustainability reports, further divided into two subcorpora — those issued by leading Chinese (public) companies by revenue (List A) and those aligned with Sustainable Development Goals criteria (List B). Results from combining keyword analysis and thematic clustering reveal diverging sustainability and political discourses across the two subcorpora, suggesting that commitment to SDGs and ownership influence language use. These variations center around two main poles, one driven by economy and State ideology (List A) and the other by a techno-oriented perspective (List B), reflecting the diverse approaches currently present in China’s sustainability arena.