BP's Greenwashing Exposed by Gulf Oil Spill

Beyond Legitimacy: A Case Study in BP’s ‘‘Green Lashing’’
Sabine Matejek • Tobias Gössling
Published online: 31 December 2013
� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract This paper discusses the issue of legitimacy and,
in particular the processes of building, losing, and repairing
environmental legitimacy in the context of the Deepwater
Horizon case. Following the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe
in 2010, BP plc. was accused of having set new records in the
degree of divergence between its actual operations and what
it had been communicating with regard to corporate
responsibility. Its legitimacy crisis is here to be appraised as a
case study in the discrepancy between symbolic and sub-
stantive strategies in corporate greening and its communi-
cation. A narrative analysis of BP’s ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ -
rebranding and the ‘‘making this right’’-campaign issued in

response to the Gulf of Mexico disaster discusses their
respective implications for (green) corporate change. Fur-
ther, the question is addressed why BP’s green image
endeavors were so widely accepted at first, only to find
themselves dismissed as corporate greenwashing now. The
study concludes that where a corporation’s ‘‘green narra-
tive’’ consistently evokes established narratives, its legiti-
macy will be judged against narrative, rather than empirical
truth. Thus, the narrative will be more willingly accepted as
speaking for the issuing company’s legitimacy, irrespective
of whether it reflects substantive greening or not.
Keywords Corporate environmental responsibility �
Impression management � Narrative analysis � Corporate
communication � Image crisis � BP
Introduction
Legitimacy as a social construct that relates the impression
of the audience concerning the behavior and actions of
organizations with approval or disapproval is a central
topic in institutional organization theory (Suchman 1995).

In that context, two different discussions about legitimacy,
although highly related with each other, can be discerned:
On the one hand, research discusses the consequences of
legitimacy; on the other hand, the question is on the
antecedents of legitimacy, also translated to the managerial
perspective and related to the question what organizati ons
(can) do to build, maintain or lose and repair their legiti -
macy. Both perspectives are dealt with in the seminal work
by Mark Suchman (1995) who defines legitimacy as ‘‘a
generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an
entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some
socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and
definitions’’ (ibid, p. 574). In his work, Suchman distin-
guishes between three essential types of legitimacy, i.e. (1)
pragmatic legitimacy, related to the products and services
that an organization offers and the perception of these to be
relevant for the society, (2) moral legitimacy, based upon
actions and behavior of the respective organization, and (3)

cognitive legitimacy, which refers to the comprehensibility
of an organization and its actions.
In the CSR debate, the concept of legitimacy is used to
understand and explain the business–society relationship
and, in particular, the business case in business ethics. In
this context, it is often argued that organizations that vio-
late societal rules lose legitimacy whereas those organi -
zations that contribute to the well-being of societies will be
rewarded accordingly. For instance, Palazzo and Scherer
(2006, p. 71) state the following: ‘‘In recent years, many
corporations have been involved in conflicts with civil
S. Matejek (&)
International Business, DHBW Mannheim, Coblitzallee, 1-9,
68163 Mannheim, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
T. Gössling
Organization Studies and Tilburg Sustainability Center, Tilburg
University, Tilburg, The Netherlands
123

J Bus Ethics (2014) 120:571–584
DOI 10.1007/s10551-013-2006-6
society and as a result their legitimacy has been chal-
lenged.’’ Even though it is often not made explicit, legiti -
macy in a CSR context is moral legitimacy: Companies
that contravene social institutions risk losing their legiti -
macy; consumers and investors can take economic action,
thus not buy the respective products or shares any more,
employees can take organizational behavior actions in the
sense of withdrawing commitment and losing motivation
(Gössling 2011).
Environmental legitimacy is part of moral legitimacy
(Bansal and Kistruck 2006). Corporate stakeholders, the
media, including social media, NGO watchdogs, and gov-
ernmental regulators have all been putting increased pres-
sure on companies to assume corporate environmental
responsibility (CER), i.e., to strategically consider and

manage the impact of their products and operations on the
natural environment. The objective of CER engagement is
for the company to build and sustain environmental
legitimacy.
Bansal and Clelland (2004, p. 94) define corporate
environmental legitimacy as ‘‘the generalized perception or
assumption that a firm’s corporate environmental perfor-
mance is desirable, proper or appropriate’’ and conse-
quently deserving of approval. This definition of the term
stresses that environmental legitimacy is assigned by
stakeholders in a process of perception, based pri marily on
impressions. Companies faced with their stakeholders’
CER demands are thus drawn into the process of impres-
sion management, in which ‘‘the firm’s image is negotiated
between the organization and its audience’’ (Bansal and
Kistruck 2006, p. 166), as the company takes deliberate
influence on how it is perceived with regard to CER ‘‘by
controlling what is disclosed and how’’ (ibid). This man-

agement of impression is closely related with strategic
responses to institutional pressures (Oliver 1991). The key
argument in Olivers’s ideas is that organizations possess
different possible reactions on institutional pressure, and
compliance is just one possible strategy to satisfy stake-
holders. Compromising, avoiding, defying or manipulating
or other strategic responses (ibid, p. 152).
Public impressions of CER will usually be limited to
what is communicated by the company and the media,
including social media. Most stakeholders, and consumers
without NGO-clout or state legislation on their hands in
particular, are usually not privy to a company’s strategies
and activities in terms of its substantive actions, i.e., they
are not in a position to tell whether the greening activities
‘‘create real and material change in the organization’s
goals, structures, and processes’’ or not (Bansal and Ki -
struck 2006, p. 166; see also Brown 1994; Cole and Van
Orman 2008). Rather, corporate greening can be accessed

and evaluated only by proxy of the symbolic representa-
tions of substantive actions (Cherry and Sneirson 2011),
making external communication a vital aspect of corporate
environmental legitimacy. This aspect deserves particular
attention, given the rather complicated issue of corporate
communication as compared with third party communica-
tions. Transparency differs between organizations with
regard to the amount of information that is demanded and
provided (Holt and Barkemeyer 2012). Different types of
social and environmental audits and rankings aim at mak-
ing CER measurable and comparable; however, the amount
of information provided in such rankings is controversial,
ambiguous and too numerous for consumers to be workable
(ibid). Critical consumers, active in the blogsphere, point
particularly to problems caused by focal organizations
(Etter and Fieseler 2011). However, they do so in very
particular cases and are rather selective with pointing their
attention to organizations. Also as a consequence of this,

some organizations are more transparent than others, since
the pressure for transparency differs between sectors and
organizations. Hence, organizations that apply sophisti-
cated communication systems can manage to be the most
important source concerning information about themselves
for the majority of stakeholders.
Green narratives, i.e., the plots in which a company
structures environmental issues to communicate them, are a
decisive aspect of symbolic representations in this context.
Narratives make communicable what is considered valu-
able (Kearney 2002; Starkey and Crane 2003). They rep-
resent one of the rare means of access to corporate values
and culture, which are renowned for their evasive, implicit,
and abstract nature that makes them difficult to tackle
(Boje 2008), but also a crucial source of motivations and
restrictions on individual as well as corporate behavior
(Brown 1994).
Green narratives can possibly represent two different

things: First, they can be the explicit communication and
the representation of underlying substantive greening. On
the other hand, they may also be deployed deliberately ‘‘in
order to direct attention away from certain facts and
towards others’’ (Brown 1994, p. 166), taking any degree
of deviation from substantive activities in an organization.
In this case, symbolic actions may even eclipse substantive
activities entirely, a phenomenon generally referred to as
greenwashing, or window dressing. Hence, green narratives
‘‘serve as a form of deception to mislead critics of a firm’s
environmental record by merely embracing the narrative as
a rhetorical device, rather than as a reflection or impetus to
action’’ (Starkey and Crane 2003, p. 233). Symbolic
actions, then, ‘‘are acts to which meaning is attributed
beyond their substantive impact’’ (Brown 1994, p. 863) and
which replace, rather represent what they communicate.
Empirically, this study investigates the stark contrast in
BP’s public communications with regard to environmental

responsibility before and after the Gulf of Mexico crisis in
572 S. Matejek, T. Gössling
123
2010. By means of a narrative analysis, it offers an
explanation for the fast decline of corporate (environmen-
tal) legitimacy in the context of a crisis. It strives to answer
the questions of how BP’s symbolic commitme nt to cor-
porate greening could create an image of substantial
environmental responsibility, and, consequently, environ-
mental legitimacy, and to what extent its prior ‘‘green’’
differentiation aggravated the reputational, financial, and
operational crisis after the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.
In 2010, BP plc. had to experience a severe loss of
legitimacy. After the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon
oil platform with its fatalities and the subsequent envi -
ronmental fallout, BP’s was caught in a corporate legiti-
macy crisis. The company was not only found to have

failed at fulfilling its responsibilities toward its employees,
the environment, its stakeholders, and its shareholders
(Reidel 2010; Rickens 2010; Steffy 2010). But, as it is to be
shown in the following, the media and environmental
NGOs also cast BP as a corporation willing to don a green
image for mere symbolic sake, without backing it up with
the necessary strategic and operational change which
would give it substance. The following overview of the
media response to the Gulf of Mexico crisis shows how
BP’s greening campaign set the stage for the dimensions to
its loss of legitimacy in 2010.
BP in Waters Too Deep
Through an elaborate, $200 Million rebranding campaign
driven by former CEO John Browne (Lowry 2010), BP had
turned itself into the first global player of the oil business to
find its strategic vision in a future ‘‘beyond petroleum.’’ BP
acknowledged the inevitably finite nature of its primary
product resource and, in deliberate contrast to its industry

competitors in general and market leader ExxonMobil in
particular, was also the first oil company to publically
accept the scientific reality of man-made climate change
(Cherry and Sneirson 2011; Heubaum 2010; Reidel 2010;
Vetter et al. 2010). BP declared it would proactively and
sustainably diversify its product portfolio, turning toward
alternative, renewable energy sources (Lowry 2010).
Claiming to take its business objectives beyond petro-
leum was a daring move, considering the intrinsic paradox
of a ‘‘green’’ extractor, refiner, and marketer of crude oil
products. Its greening campaign was consequently met
with equal measures of awed approval and cynical ridicule
within and outside the company from the very beginning
(Balmer 2010; Cherry and Sneirson 2011; Hicks 2010;
Frey 2002; Kenney 2006; Macalister 2002; Reidel 2010;
Krauss 2001; Lowry 2010; Rickens 2010; Vetter et al.
2010). Most decisively, however, assuming the role of a
green industry leader placed BP under increased scrutiny,

and the group was to be measured against different stan-
dards ever since (Cherry and Sneirson 2011). After having
raised itself to the heights of spearheading in CER and
profiting from the advantages of favorable visibility (Frey
2002; Hart and McGinn 2010; Macalister 2002; Cherry and
Sneirson 2011; Hicks 2010; Reidel 2010), BP had to take a
severe ‘‘green lashing’’ (Bansal and Clelland 2004) from
financial markets, government representatives, industry
regulators, environmental pressure groups, the media, and
those directly affected by the oil spill in 2010.
As lease owner, BP was legally responsible for opera-
tional safety on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
Although it was not the only responsible party involved in
the accident and its consequences, BP was confronted with
by far the most severe charges of fault or shortcomings in
congressional and legal investigations (Mufson and
Kornblut 2010; Chazan and Carlton 2010; Cline 2010). The
kind of operations it faced in response to the crisis ‘‘had

never been done before in 5,000 feet of water’’ (PR VII)
and BP had to concede that their success could not be
guaranteed since ‘‘[t]his will be the first time this proven
shallow water technology has been adapted for the deep-
water’’ (PR IV) or even ‘‘tested in these conditions’’ (PR
VII). Likewise, BP was facing the accusation that it had
been conducting deepwater drilling with technology
developed and proven reliable only under shallow water
conditions, and without adequate measures to either pre-
vent a blowout, or react to one (Chazan and Carlton 2010;
Mufson 2011). Even though BP was no exception to its
industry competitors in this regard, and even though it had
obtained the necessary permits from the US authorities, this
earned it no leniency with the public regarding its per-
ceived environmental irresponsibility (Eilperin 2010).
Only days after the accident, emails and internal com-
munications were leaked to the media which suggested, if not
documented, that BP had repeatedly ignored safety concerns

raised by its own and contracted engineers on the Deepwater
Horizon drilling rig (e.g., Steffy 2010). When investigations
into the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe exposed a clear lack
of substantive care for environmental and personnel safety
(Cline 2010; Eilperin 2010; Heubaum 2010; Mufson and
Kornblut 2010), BP was not only criticized for the risks they
had taken when operating the platform but also for their
efforts to let the company appear greener than it was. Critics
worldwide were launching ironical redesigns of the BP logo,
spoofed ad layouts, and rewritings of its former marketing
spins; wherever BP had positioned itself as beyond petro-
leum, environmentally friendly, or setting new standards in
sustainability, these communication artifacts were now
‘‘hijacked’’ and used to discredit BP (for examples see e.g.,
Balmer 2010), see as an example Fig. 1.
The loss of legitimacy was utterly expensive, costing the
group record amounts in cash (estimates of the total costs
Beyond Legitimacy 573

123
ran between $16 and $67 billion, depending on the degree
of negligence BP would be found guilty of; cf. Mufson
2011; Reidel 2010) and 50 % of its market capitalization in
2010 (see Fig. 2). This drastic drop was largely due to the
pending question of liability as, for months, it remained
unclear how much exactly BP would owe the US author-
ities and how much the courts would assign to those
affected on sea and at the shores (Hannam 2010; Hicks
2010; Reidel 2010). While the values lost in trust and
license to operate in and beyond the Gulf of Mexico states
may be less easy to quantify, the fact that BP has not
entirely recovered its pre-crisis market value (see Fig. 2)
indicates that the same company with the same assets may
considered to be worth less without as a consequence of its
loss in moral legitimacy. Effectively, the company had not
lost any of its pragmatic legitimacy, since it was still fully

able to operate its petrol business and provide all products
and services in the same quantity and quality as before the
accident happened.
Indeed, BP’s public image during and immediately
after the crisis took slightly varied tones of the same
judgment: that the group’s green differentiation had been
exposed as nothing but a means to an end—i.e., an end
other than accepting environmental responsibility (Cherry
and Sneirson 2011; Hannam 2010). The immense blow to
BP’s corporate image has been assigned to this ‘‘sense of
betrayal’’ (ibid). In different print media, BP was diag-
nosed with a ‘‘pervasive profit-orientation’’ which was
perceived as being in diametrical opposition to stake-
holder-oriented and safety-conscious, responsible busi-
ness conduct (Cline 2010; Reidel 2010; Rickens 2010;
Steffy 2010). Eventually, the Deepwater Horizon crisis
drew attention to this ‘‘gap that BP so effectively
exploited—taking advantage of the public relations upside

of CSR without actually expanding the time or money to
integrate or engage in it’’ (Cherry and Sneirson 2011,
p. 115).
Fig. 1 Cynical response to the BP logo by Greenpeace
Fig. 2 Stock chart for BP plc. (retrieved June 20th, 2012, from
nasdaq.com) depicting BP’s stock price (top chart) and
available shares on the
public market (bottom chart) between July 2009 and June 2012
123
Besides the financial and reputational dimension, BP’s
crisis was also one of engineering capacity. For all the most
pressing tasks—stopping the spill, sealing the well, con-
taining the oil and its damages—BP seemed ill-prepared, if
not downright incapable (Chazan and Carlton 2010; Eil-
perin 2010; Vetter et al. 2010). As the crisis dragged on for
months, BP’s struggle was personified in its CEO Tony
Hayward (Balmer 2010; Vetter et al. 2010; Boldt and
Student 2010), who provided the already raging media

frenzy with a running list of ‘‘Haywardisms’’: remarks that
showed a lack of sensitivity for the situation, for example
‘‘There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I
would like my life back.’’, ‘‘I think the environmental
impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very
modest.’’ and ‘‘What the hell did we do to deserve this?’’
The CEO undermined the legitimacy of its company by
reacting perceivably inadequately throughout the crisis.
Damage control became the only thing left for BP, which
in consequence ‘‘raised the bar for themselves and any
other company in terms of throwing the weight of com-
munications resources at a crisis’’ (Bush 2010), coining the
term ‘‘crisis marketing’’ (ibid). BP’s CER impression
management credo turned from ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ to
‘‘Making this right.’’
Research Questions
Cherry and Sneirson (2011, p. 987) have recently discussed
the discrepancy of ‘‘the reality versus the myth of BP’’ and

the question at which degree of discrepancy between
communicated and substantive greening a company’s CER
communication attains the quality of fraud. Whether or not
BP will be held legally accountable for securities fraud or
false advertisement will be decided in court. Judging by the
rules of transparent business conduct, however, the public
and media have clearly reached their verdict, generally
agreeing that BP’s green impression management was
hardly more than a symbolic bubble. Admittedly, the media
was certainly more than a neutral observer. Certainly, the
government and media themselves engaged in blame
shifting and scape goating. But whether justified or not, the
impression left is one for which BP now has to account.
As Bansal and Kistruck (2006, p. 166) have pointed out,
‘‘scholars […] are interested in the ethics of using symbolic
impressions that deliberately diverge from substantive
actions.’’ After all, a corporation willing to ‘‘involve pre-
tense and deceit’’ (ibid) in their impression management is

expected to make similarly questionable concessions on
integrity in other matters of corporate conduct as well
(Bansal and Clelland 2004; Rickens 2010). However,
deliberation is hard to prove with regard to false impres-
sions. The challenge, then, is to provide an evaluative
framework which allows for corporate responsibility
communications to be analyzed with regard to the symbolic
versus substantive nature of their impression management
effects. Therefore, this paper asks:
RQ 1: How can we explain that BP’s green narrative
aggravated the company’s loss of legitimacy through the
Gulf of Mexico crisis, when its public impression reversed
from BP as oil industry leader in CER to BP as a deceptive
greenwasher?
This paper builds on such an evaluative framework
through narrative analysis, addressing two matters of par -
ticular interest for corporate responsibility research:
On a practical level, we need to study in greater

detail how management develops and embraces green
narrative and how such narrative actually reflects or
stimulates changes in management practices. On a
conceptual level, we need to be aware of the seduc-
tive and deceptive (including self-deceptive) power
of language and reflect upon how better to connect
green word/narrative with deeds that are consistent
with the spirit of such narrative.
(Starkey and Crane 2003, p. 234; emphasis added)
Addressing the practical level, the BP case will be analyzed
as a study in corporate narratives and their implications for
substantive greening.
RQ 2: Were the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ and ‘‘Making this
right’’ narratives consistent with reflecting or reinforcing
substantive green change at BP?
(De-)familiarization Narratives and Corporate Greening
The analysis of green narratives on the practical level of
substantive and symbolic greening as cited above presup-

poses that they are relevant for either (Brown 1994). While
corporate narratives might be intuitively considered as
symbolic representations only, they can also have a con-
siderable impact on substantive actions, since they may
‘‘influence and control decision premises, processes and
outcomes’’ (ibid, p. 863). Green narratives enable a com-
pany to accept or, where necessary, limit its corporate
environmental responsibilities; especially in a change
process, they can generate and foster a company’s com-
mitment to its change toward greener management and
operations (Preuss and Dawson 2009).
Starkey and Crane (2003, p. 227) introduced the distinction
of familiarization and defamiliarization narratives because
they had found that ‘‘where firms actively engage in envi -
ronmental programs, they are likely to mobilize existing
organizational narratives to frame the process of change,
rather than develop new ones.’’ Such familiarization

123
narratives are more readily accepted as part of the organiza-
tion, because they plot its greening ‘‘in terms of company
traditions, such as a history of product quality, cost control,
customercare’’etc.(ibid), and are thusbuildingonestablished
aspects of corporate strategy and identity.
Familiarizing new corporate objectives and strategies
via such narratives is a facilitative condition for corporate
change, since it provides the ‘‘acceptable and uncontro-
versial frames of reference’’ (Starkey and Crane 2003,
p. 227) required to engage an organization’s internal and
external agents of change. However, it is not a sufficient
condition where the change process requires ‘‘a significant
shift in the values and normative systems underpinning
management theory and practice’’ (ibid). We argue that a
company’s clear renunciation from its core business would
represent such a significant shift in values and norms.

Defamiliarization narratives, by contrast, create ‘‘para-
digmatic tension and ideological conflict’’ (Starkey and
Crane 2003, p. 222) by introducing narrative patterns
diverting from or even opposed to the prevailing narratives.
Yet it is exactly their initial lack of acceptability which
results in their possible impetus for substantial change:
alternative narratives draw attention to the ultimately con-
structive and selective nature of the prevalent narrative,
showing that it can be replaced. Thus, defamiliarization
narratives are considered facilitators of corporate change and
substantive greening. In BP’s case, we therefore suggest that
a green narrative capable of reflecting or reinforcing sub-
stantive greening would have to be a defamiliarizing one.
Narrative Analysis as Evaluative Framework
When addressing narratives on the conceptual level of
legitimacy, a vital precondition is to be aware of the dis-
tinction which is intuitively made between fictional and non-
fictional narratives. Narratives may either be evaluated

based on their accuracy of recounting events as they are
claimed to have happened (empirical truth), or evaluated
with regard to how plausible they make that their recounted
events could have happened as described within the world as
narrated (narrative truth). Narrative truth is fulfilled, where
a given plot is rendered likely, convincing, and appropriate
within its (fictional) framework (Kearney 2002; Koutsoubou
2010), while non-fictional narratives are expected to refer
truthfully to an empirical reality ‘‘outside’’ their plot.
The audience is usually content to accept narrative truth
when it comes to narratives which do not refute their fic-
tionality. Where a narrative lays emphasis on its non-fic-
tional nature, such as in corporate impression management,
however, narrative truth is generally considered as
diverging from, inferior and even contrary to empirical
truth. Here, the intuitive dichotomy is between narrative or
truth. Thus, the distinction between narrative and empirical
truth is of great relevance when developing an evaluative

framework for narrative impression management: a narra-
tive fulfilling the criteria of narrative truth can create
impressions of corporate environmental legitimacy as
defined above, even if it would fail a test against ‘‘empir -
ical truth’’ or substantive CER.
Approach
Based on prior efforts toward that end (Starkey and Crane
2003; Preuss and Dawson 2009), this case study has been
conducted by means of a narratological research method
(Barthes and Duisit 1975) which has recently been trans-
ferred to the analysis of narratives in CER as ‘‘an alter -
native approach to judging the quality and, ultimately, the
legitimacy of narratives about business and the environ-
ment’’ (Preuss and Dawson 2009, p. 139).
Data Basis
The empirical data of a narrative analysis are the narrative
texts under scrutiny (Humphreys and Brown 2008). In this
case, they are selected CER communications by BP pre-

dating the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe as well as taken
from its ‘‘crisis marketing’’-campaign in 2010. They were
chosen as data resources for this study based on the selection
criteria of free accessibility to external stakeholders, direct
topical relation to BP’s CER or the Deepwater Horizon
crisis response, and a diversity of communication channels
through which BP could spread ‘‘its own story’’ (i.e., with
little interference by the media or others), because such
communications were considered most likely to have an
impression management effect on public stakeholders.
As a result, the selection is clustered into press releases
(shortened PR), homepage information texts (shortened HP),
print advertisements (shortened PA), and corporate sustain-
ability reports (shortened SR). Twelve press releases were
selected and successively numbered by date of release; they
all relate to the crisis response after the Deepwater Horizon
explosion. Nine information texts from the BP webpage are
quoted here for the analysis, numbered successively. Ten

successively numbered print advertisements and three reports
are also referred to: the sustainability report (SR 1) and the
environmental report (SR 2) of the year 2009 as well as the
Gulf of Mexico response report (SR 3) from 2010.
Beyond Petroleum
The following discussion will put the main findings of the
narrative analysis of BP’s ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ communi -
cations in relation to the media response in 2010 as a proxy
123
of BP’s moral legitimacy during and after the Gulf of
Mexico crisis. It will evaluate them with regard to in how
far they represent (de-)familiarization narratives and how
this affected BP’s perceived corporate CER. We show how
it can be explained that the green narrative was accepted
widely (though not completely) as legitimate and what
caused it to eventually ‘‘erode, rather than build, legiti -

macy’’ (Bansal and Kistruck 2006, p. 178) for BP in 2010
(RQ 1).
To start with the slogan itself, the truncated and highly
abstract brand statement ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ functions as
a kind of ubiquitous headline to BP’s green narrative,
evoking implications of a wider picture (the unspecified
‘‘beyond’’). Read against the context of the oil industry’s
stereotypical image as dirty, greedy, and ruthless (Bonini
et al. 2010), it carries the positive associations generally
assigned to a wider horizon, as well as tentative implica-
tions of a moral higher ground. Setting itself beyond its
peers’ target-fixation on petroleum, BP tagged itself as
‘‘being different (read: better) than traditional oil compa-
nies’’ (Cherry and Sneirson 2011, p. 1025; see also Vetter
et al. 2010).
Deprived of temporality, the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ signet
stands to be taken either as a mission and vision for the
future, or as an evaluation of the current state of operations.

With its atemporality, BP’s motto blurs the line between
what the company is striving for and to what it is sub-
stantially committing. The tag line ‘‘It’s a start’’ initially
added to the beyond petroleum PR and marketing com-
munications (e.g., PA 1–3, 4–6) mirrors this vagueness,
deploying it in BP’s favor (Cherry and Sneirson 2011; Frey
2002). This way, BP profited from an enhanced green
image even when its core business in petroleum still
eclipsed its tentative investments in renewable energy by
far (Frey 2002).
As the slogan was gaining ground, it was highly suc-
cessful in setting BP apart from its industry as ‘‘the com-
pany that goes beyond what you expect from an oil
company—frank, open, honest and unapologetic’’ (Frey
2002, unpublished). Today, BP still narrates its environ-
mental responsibility as unusual, in the sense of ‘‘beyond’’
usual expectations toward an oil company, introduced as
‘‘surprisingly for some’’ and something that ‘‘[a] skeptic

may have wondered’’ about (HP 4). Explicitly including
this unusual quality is a familiarizing technique, involving
addressees by including them as a ‘‘role’’ in the narrative,
offering points of identification. It also adds emphasis to
how extraordinary BP’s steps were, i.e., even as they are
played down as a mere ‘‘start,’’ they still represented a
clear mark of distinction for BP and by implication
deserved respect for their progressive and idealistic nature.
One of the most telling examples of BP’s plotlines in
this context is found in the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ print ad
campaign. Here, BP declared that it was ‘‘time to go on a
low-carbon diet’’ (PA 6), advertising its investment efforts
in natural gas, solar energy, and ‘‘cleaner’’ power stations.
Once again, the narrative remains conveniently vague, this
time by leaving its subject obscure and merely implying
that it is BP who is (or should be) going on a diet which
cuts out high-carbon energy. This implication arises by
showing that BP has at least started to abstain from the lure

of the highly profitable (i.e., to say ‘‘tasty’’) but harmful (or
‘‘fattening’’) oil market, with its products increasing the
risk of environmental side-effects and deprivation (carbon
‘‘obesity’’). Instead, it engages in ‘‘healthier’’ choices
which, following the diet metaphor, are associated with the
less pleasurable but more disciplined way to go.
BP’s use of the dietary metaphor is a good example of
how certain plot structures endow what is narrated with
evaluative meaning: the company’s commitment to envi-
ronmental responsibility is subtly cast in terms of resist-
ibility and the character strengths of knowing (and doing)
what is best in the long run, even if it requires sacrifices
and self-control in the present. It reinforces the differenti-
ation from BP’s industry competitors who kept indulging in
their unsustainable carbon ‘‘binge.’’
A different one of the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ ads evokes
another metaphorical imagery by proclaiming that ‘‘It’s
time to think outside the barrel’’ (PA 7), also elevating BP

as the one who does from those competitors who don’t.
This attribution of an ‘‘out of the box’’ corporate strategy is
widely supported in BP’s CER communications by refer-
ring to its former CEO Lord Browne as the personification
of ‘‘green leadership.’’ Indeed, when BP first started out
beyond petroleum, it was in a context of tackling climate
change, with CEO Lord Browne lecturing on global
warming at Stanford University (Heubaum 2010). Till date,
Browne’s persona as a ‘‘green leader’’ is conflated with
BP’s corporate identity in its communications on CER,
switching within sentences between him as atypical oil
industry visionary thinking outside the barrel and ‘‘BP’s
willingness to confront environmental issues’’ (HP 1).
Browne’s career path in BP’s crisis-prone Alaska division,
for example, is appropriated as a ‘‘long learning process’’
for the business as a whole (ibid), implying that through the
‘‘beyond petroleum’’ campaign, BP was turned into ‘‘the
public face of Browne’s convictions’’ (Frey 2002,

unpublished).
In its brand and logo history, we are still reminded that
when British Petroleum rebranded itself as BP, the acro-
nym used to stand ‘‘for the new company’s aspirations:
‘better people, better products, big picture, beyond petro-
leum’’’ (HP 3). These days, however, BP is a little more
restrained as to its brand statement, declaring ‘‘beyond
petroleum’’ to designate ‘‘going beyond in our business
activities’’ (HP 1). Here, steps toward ‘‘a material transition
123
to a lower carbon future’’ (ibid) are overborn by the
imperative of pressing for progress within the lines of
current markets. ‘‘Going beyond’’ is re-contextualized,
from diversifying into new and developing fields to
squeezing the utmost out of prevalent energy sources.
In the aftermath of BP’s crisis in 2010, the environ-

mental aspect of diversifying away from non-renewable
high-carbon fossil fuels is dropped from its green narrative.
While the symbolic impressions evoked by the ‘‘beyond
petroleum’’-campaign had been one thing, it seems as if BP
was now adjusting them closer to the substantial under-
standing of sustainability within the company. To what
extent this understanding had already been part of BP’s
corporate culture in 2009 is apparent in the descriptions
concerning its values and strategies with regard to sus-
tainability, where BP phrases its commitment as follows:
We push boundaries today and create tomorrow’s
breakthroughs through our people and technology.
[…] We intend to sustainably drive cost and capital
efficiency in accessing, finding, developing and pro-
ducing resources, enabled by deep technical ability
and a culture of continuous improvement. (SR 1)
Indeed, BP’s communications under the heading of
‘‘beyond petroleum’’ were characterized by a pervasive
dominance of ‘‘techno-rationalist’’ language (Starkey and

Crane 2003). Dealing pre-dominantly with ‘‘the policy and
science of environmental issues’’ (HP 4; emphasis added),
as BP tells of ‘‘[l]everaging our technical expertise,’’
‘‘specialists,’’ ‘‘official documents,’’ ‘‘systems of gover-
nance and management,’’ ‘‘internal control,’’ ‘‘certifica-
tions,’’ ‘‘rationalizing,’’ and ‘‘regulatory requirements’’ (SR
1; HP 4).
Meanwhile, BP’s ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-narratives are to
a large extent devoid of the environment. Its greening
communications are for the most part framed ‘‘in
Enlightenment assumptions of a detached and denatured
science and in the belief of technological development and
unlimited progress’’ (Starkey and Crane 2003, p. 226) and
the only role that nature plays—where it is part of the
narrative at all—is that of an impediment to (more) busi-
ness. As such, it poses ‘‘challenges including cost, engi -
neering and regulation’’ and ‘‘sustainability concerns’’ for
BP’s risk management (SR 1).

Describing the environment as such a detached, alien-
ated challenge to be mastered, i.e., succumbed by tech-
nology, controlled and managed effectively, situates BP’s
green narrative in the anthropocentric ‘‘progress narrative’’
(Starkey and Crane 2003). It is strongly influenced by the
metaphors of Social Darwinism. They translate the concept
of ‘‘survival of the fittest’’ into an imperative of having to
constantly push limits, take risks (Starkey and Crane 2003),
and place self-interest on the same level with self-
preservation. Thereby, it renders any ‘‘fitness’’-enhancing
measures as prudent management. From an ethical point of
view, it also displaces responsibility for the interests of
others (ibid), as the narrative’s concept of environmental
responsibility is neatly isolated from and subordinated to
core business activities (Gladwin et al. 1995). Framed as
such, striving for progress takes precedence over its con-
sequences and justifies its means.
Overcoming ‘‘boundaries’’ and ‘‘challenges’’ are cer-

tainly the most dominant keywords in the ‘‘beyond petro-
leum’’-communications. For BP, rising to the challenge
‘‘requires working at the industry’s frontiers and continuing
to innovate in our technology and processes’’ (SR 1). When
it is mentioned that the dwindling reserves of oil are
extracted from ‘‘a geological layer […] which we are only
now starting to map and understand’’ (SR 1), for example,
then this is laden with pride of ‘‘pioneering new technol -
ogies’’ to capture what was ‘‘locked away’’ from human
access before (ibid).
Technology is (necessarily) at the heart of BP’s CER
narrative and presented as the answer to ‘‘improving effi -
ciency and minimizing impact […] as well as lowering
variable costs’’ (ibid) in its operations. Especially BP’s
deepwater explorations are framed in plotlines of frontier
spirit and conquest by ‘‘cutting-edge skills and technology
to undertake complex oil and gas projects in many of the
world’s most technically challenging and hostile environ-
ments, such as the Arctic and ultra deepwater’’ (SR 1).

Thus, ‘‘specialist expertise’’ and ‘‘efficiency’’ (SR 1) are
valued most highly in BP’s green narratives, making them
prime examples of familiarization narratives for a company
centered on engineering operations.
However, BP also conveys a belief that the environment
and the impact of BP’s operations on it can be kept under
control and predictable. Examples include descriptions of
how the ‘‘climate challenge demands a clear, predictable
way forward’’ (SR 1) and new projects are secured against
unpleasant surprises by means of ‘‘a thorough review of the
environmental issues and opportunities associated with any
investment’’ (ibid). BP is confident to minimize its envi-
ronmental impact on sites of operation ‘‘by taking a sys-
tematic and disciplined approach to operations, using
sophisticated risk assessment techniques that directly affect
our business plans’’ (ibid).
Underlying these arguments is the implication that
preventing accidents and avoiding harmful environmental

impact is merely a question of having ‘‘the right people in
the right places with the right skills’’ (SR 1) for BP. Its
operations are thereby detached from their environmental
context, with the latter being presented as just another
technical challenge to be managed (Preuss and Dawson
2009). Restraint for the sake of pre-emptive caution or
prudence in the face of unknown consequences of the
123
operations’ intrusion on ecosystems (Dawson 2005) are not
part of the narration. Also, there is no mention of possible
scenarios in which technology itself can pose risks. It is
presented solely as serving the ends of efficiency and
precision, minimizing BP’s environmental impact.
These implications are contrary to the environmentalist
tradition of the ‘‘evolutionary epic’’ (Livesey 2001; Starkey
and Crane 2003). In the meta-narrative frame of the evo-

lutionary epic, an intrinsic value is ascribed to the envi-
ronment; exuberant growth is replaced by the concept of
sustainable development (Preuss and Dawson 2009; Gla-
dwin et al. 1995) and nature introduced as a ‘‘character’’ in
its own right. This is hard to reconcile with an ‘‘instru-
mental approach to nature’’ as propagated by BP’s progress
narrative (ibid). Here, admitting limitations and restricting
what one would be able to do to what can be responsibly
done is considered a weakness, an admission of defeat,
rather than a desirable trait (Hebel 2010). Absent from it
are also counter-narratives which assign an intrinsic value
to nature, both as important in its own right and as provider
of the very resources which BP is striving to harvest—and
eventually to sell for profits. The only exception are a few
isolated paragraphs on the concept of ‘‘ecosystem services’’
as a new approach to CER (SR 2; SR 3), assigned explicitly
to sources outside BP (SR 2).
Instead, BP’s green narrative consistently evokes the

concept of unrelenting progress, as the primary role which
the environment plays is that of an obstacle to be overcome,
a problem to which superior technology or technological
innovations are the solution (Starkey and Crane 2003). What
can be pointed out in this analysis is why the ‘‘beyond
petroleum’’-narrative was widely accepted despite its unu-
sual and contradictory nature within the oil industry context
(RQ 1): it very successfully evokes the meta-narrative of
unlimited progress through technological superiority, an
objective familiar to BP. Applying Starkey and Crane’s
(2003) distinction between familiarization and de-familiar-
ization narratives discussed above to the ‘‘beyond petro-
leum’’-narrative can therefore explain both, its legitimacy
effect and its implications for substantive change at BP.
As to the first, a green narrative’s integrity is usually
taken to depend on the degree to which recipients can
identify with its values (Livesey 2001; Starkey and Crane
2003).

1
This paper suggests an additional explanation: that
a narrative will be accepted as legitimate when it answers
to the demands of narrative truth, and is thereby detached
from the question to which degree it fulfills the require-
ments of empirical truth as well. As its narrative analysis
has shown, BP’s ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-communications
consistently matched the progress narrative of exuberant
growth through technological pioneering. This rendered
alternative narratives of the environmental paradigm
irrelevant for its consistency and thereby excluded their
respective values from the evaluative framework against
which BP’s corporate environmental performance was to
be judged. As a result, the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-narrative
first helped BP attain a CER impression as green industry
leader, before being turned against it as a testament of
perceived greenwashing, making BP appear more than
legally responsible.
The familiarization characteristics of ‘‘beyond petro-

leum’’ also point to ‘‘the role of green narrative in insti -
tuting a reconsideration of the values, beliefs, and
normative systems that underpin the predominant man-
agement narratives and that constitute barriers to paradig-
matic shift’’ (Starkey and Crane 2003, p. 222) as they
appear to have prevailed at BP. As a means of committing
substantially to the visionary strategy of thinking ‘‘outside
the barrel,’’ the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-narrative as it was
told by BP was situated within an unfitting narrative par-
adigm, holding on to values and objectives that were
familiar to BP. Only a de-familiarization narrative, how-
ever, could have introduced ‘‘a newly emergent narrative of
nature [which] might challenge mental models regarding
the link between management and ecosystem, thus pro-
viding the basis for a shift in management thought and
action’’ (Starkey and Crane 2003, p. 221). In this regard,
the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-campaign could not have trig-
gered or enhanced substantial greening at BP.

Still, BP’s impression management profited from a free-
riding effect of the moral dimensions and values associated
with the campaign’s vague but visionary headline and plot
structures. Here, the narrative frames resonate with such
metaphors as dietary self-control and a moral higher ground.
The values they allude to suggest substantial green change at
BP. Seeing how the reference to these implications of the
communication campaign has changed after the Gulf of
Mexico crisis, though, it can be argued that BP has
attempted to correct these impressions after its CER crisis.
When exposed, the gap between the image that BP had
evoked through its communications and its substantial
CER management made stakeholders aware of the con-
structed and interchangeable nature of the ‘‘beyond petro-
leum’’-narrative. Thus, its legitimacy enhancing effects
reversed into a sense of having been misled, resulting in
considerable green lashing, as it is to be described in the
following.

1
Cherry and Sneirson (2011, p. 1007), for instance, have argued
that
BP’s green narrative was so ‘‘wildly successful’’ because its
cunningly added tagline ‘‘’It’s a start’ […] struck a nerve with
American consumers’’ (ibid), who found their own
environmental
irresponsibility dilemma mirrored in BP’s greening paradox,
‘‘[f]or
whatever their own carbon footprints might be, for whatever
gas-
guzzling SUVs they or their neighbors might own, for however
many
trips consumers made in their cars, they at least aspired to be
kinder to
the environment,’’ too (ibid).
123
Making This Right
As BP found itself in a full-blown crisis after the Deep-
water Horizon explosion, it engaged in a response com-

munication campaign of equal proportions (Chazan and
Carlton 2010). The main findings of the narrative analysis
of BP’s crisis response communications will be discussed
in the following.
Through all available channels (Boldt and Student 2010),
not only ranging from classic public and investor relations
over the company webpage to TV, radio, and print media
ads, but also pervading all social media hubs from Facebook
over YouTube to Twitter, BP sent out a persistent, uniform
message: ‘‘We will get this done. We will make this right’’
(e.g., PA I). ‘‘Making this right’’ was soon inscribed in all
communications with regard to the Gulf of Mexico crisis
response. From a narrative analysis point of view, it poses an
interesting contrast to the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ slogan. First,
temporality is this time clearly included by the present
participle form of ‘‘making’’ —stressing how BP was taking
action and control of the situation. Second, aiming to set
things ‘‘right’’ is an explicit reference to stakeholder

expectations toward BP’s responsiveness. While the
‘‘beyond petroleum’’-campaign had mostly implied the
moral dimensions of BP’s environmental responsibilities,
‘‘making this right’’ seemed to acknowledge them overtly.
However, as the narrative progresses, there is a striking
turn to its plot structure, possibly explaining why its
‘‘headline’’ requires the more distancing ‘‘this’’, rather than
an ‘‘it’’, when referring to the multifold crisis. As the fol -
lowing analysis will show, BP was very explicit about
assuming ‘‘full responsibility for cleaning up the spill’’
(e.g., HP d), but not for the spill itself. By implication, BP
was stepping up to do what is right, but refrained from
including any prior wrongdoing in its narrative, which
made making it right necessary in the first place.
Given the circumstances, BP’s ‘‘Making this right’’-
narrative thereby masters the avoidance of self-incrimina-
tion as epitomized by the US American Miranda warning
that whatever you say can and will be held against you in a

court of law. The ‘‘making this right’’-narrative allowed for
BP to assume responsibility and engage in a full-on crisis
response as a means of reinstating its legitimacy, rather
than aggravating the allegations of (ir)responsibility (and,
by implication, negligence) in legal terms. Especially with
regard to the fact that BP was one of several parties
involved, but definitely the one taking most of the public
blame (Cherry and Sneirson 2011; Frey 2002; Hart and
McGinn 2010; Macalister 2002), the narrative served its
situation optimally, placing BP’s role in it in a more
favorable light.
The first aspect to the plot structure which helped BP to
at least start and rebuild legitimacy is its beginning. For
BP, the narrative of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe
begins with a ‘‘tragic incident’’, an act of higher powers,
compared indeed to a natural disaster like Hurricane Kat-
rina (PA III). Set in relation with a freak accident of nature,
the rig’s explosion is placed in a context without agency

(HP d; PR II, SR 3). In such a plot, things happen without
an acting subject, as questions of responsibility are avoided
by the narrative’s passive voice (Hebel 2010). For instance,
the narrative sets out ‘‘when tragedy strikes’’ (PA III) or ‘‘a
gas release and subsequent explosion occurred’’ (HP d).
Similarly de-personalized is the following description of
how ‘‘the accident involved a loss of control over the
pressure in the well followed by the failure of the well’s
blowout preventer […] allowing the leak to occur’’ (HP d).
Excluded from this narrative are any patterns or concrete
instances of behavior on BP’s part which may have led up
to the accident. Also, if the trigger to the crisis was the kind
of accident which, as it is implied, could not have been
anticipated and prevented, this means the same could have
happened to anyone and ‘‘any one company’’ (HP b).
Pointing this out is a normalizing technique repeatedly
employed by BP in its crisis communication (HP b, d; PR I,
II, III, IX; SR 3). The impression created is one of

deflecting the attribution of responsibility to BP
individually.
A second, more dominant element in BP’s ‘‘making this
right’’-narrative is the clear distinction between ‘‘Trans-
ocean’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig’’ and itself as
‘‘lease operator’’ (HP d; PA I; PR I, III). Especially in BP’s
press releases throughout the response, this twofold role
division is addressed overtly (e.g., PR V) and gradually
translated into a sequencing structure which becomes the
established ‘‘chaptering’’ of information in BP’s press
releases (PR VI ff.): ‘‘Subsea Source Control and Con-
tainment’’ and ‘‘Surface Spill Response, Containment and
Shoreline Protection’’ (PR VI). Through this structure, the
narrative assigns a rather admirable role to BP, as the one
who is battling the crisis ‘‘at multiple fronts’’ (HP d)—the
fishing grounds and the beaches in particular—where the
consequences manifest themselves most visibly:
We have acted to take responsibility for the clean-up,

to respond swiftly to compensate people affected by
the impact of the accident, and to look after the
health, safety and welfare of the large number of
residents and people who have helped respond to the
spill. (ibid)
With regard to the clean-up, BP has accepted not merely
that it is ‘‘a responsible party, as defined under US legis -
lation,’’ but also that it sees ‘‘a huge moral obligation’’ (PR
XI) to make things right.
BP is also involved in the frustrating efforts to stop the
problem at its source, albeit here it presents itself as merely
123
one of many parties involved, along ‘‘with Transocean,
MMS, the US Coast Guard’’ (PR V) and ‘‘working closely
with specialists form peer companies, governmental
agencies and academia [to tackle] the leak in multiple,

parallel ways’’ (HP e). As a subtext, BP is communicating
that it only takes a share of responsibility at and for the
literal source of the problem.
Resonating with this self-assigned role, BP presents its
response efforts in the familiar terms of pride in superior
technological abilities of ‘‘[t]he best engineers in the
world’’ and in having ‘‘organized the largest environmental
response in this country’s history’’ (PA I). Communications
like this show the potential unintentional side-effects of
crisis marketing: where it praises response performance
more than showing humility and regret for having caused
the original problems, it may offend affected stakeholders.
Crisis marketing can then create the kind of CSR backlash
which accuses the issuing company of bolstering its repu-
tation in a way that is easily perceived as ungrounded and
even inappropriate under the circumstances.
BP also describes the innovations ‘‘ranging from incre-
mental enhancements to step changes in technologies and

techniques’’ which were necessary to stop the deepwater
spill with predominant pride of how they ‘‘have advanced
the state of the art and laid the foundation for future
refinements’’ (HP b). They are presented as testament to the
company’s ingenuity and leading position in the market.
Not mentioned, however, is the embarrassing trial-and-
error ordeal when the praised technologies failed to put an
end to the crisis (Chazan and Carlton 2010; Cherry and
Sneirson 2011; Harlow et al. 2010; Vetter et al. 2010).
After all, BP kept falling short of its own ideals as they are
emplotted in its corporate narrative: superior technical
expertise and engineering skills. This demonstrates that
CER communication has a high potential for (re)building
legitimacy ‘‘regardless of whether the firm substantively
engaged in the activities described’’ successfully (Bansal
and Kistruck 2006, p. 167).
As the analysis of BP’s ‘‘making this right’’-campaign
has shown, its plot structure’s scope limits the narrative of

BP’s responsibility to the crisis response, leaving out its
causes. In other words, BP assumes responsibility for
making things right, but not for having done anything
wrong. Its ‘‘making this right’’ narrative had the primary
objective to isolate the company as best as possible against
a legal admittance of guilt without contradicting its
response efforts. This defensive stance encodes a threat to
its corporate existence, as once again the narrative is clo-
sely intertwined with the concept of evolution. However,
while the progress narrative had embraced the survival of
the fittest argument for the business context, this time the
metaphor of ‘‘organizational mortality’’ (Starkey and Crane
2003, p. 229) is introduced: ‘‘While interrelationships and
interdependencies are highlighted, we also have species
destruction, crisis of biodiversity, and the ever-present risk
of extinction’’ (ibid) in their respective metaphorical
translations to the business world. Any of the latter can be a
driver of co-evolution, i.e., the notion that competition and

market mechanisms do not pre-empt collaboration from
which all parties involved will profit respectively (ibid).
Implied here is what CSR research refers to as ‘‘license
to operate’’: as opposed to the logic of the progress nar -
rative, it is not ‘‘the fittest’’ corporation itself, but ‘‘natural
selection by the environment [which] determines survival’’
(ibid, p. 228) for a corporation. As opposed to the domi -
nance of competitive superiority in the ‘‘beyond petro-
leum’’-narrative, BP’s ‘‘making this right’’ is set in a frame
of business narratives that are ‘‘freed from their narcissistic
and self-regarding tendencies and [can] be structured
instead around multiple characters’’ (ibid, p. 229), or
stakeholders.
Yet, as a narrative of CER, the ‘‘making this right’’-plot
falls short of the kind of paradigmatic shift necessary to
trigger a substantial change in BP’s consideration of its
environmental impact. A year after the crisis, the patterns
of BP’s CER narrative were still dominated by techno-

rationalist language (SR 2) and the same pushing-the-
frontier spirit as before (HP a, b, c). The concepts of sus -
tainability and environmental responsibility remain framed
in objectives such as cost and liability reduction, as w ell as
the ongoing pursuit of oil reserves as core priority (SR 3).
Even the oil spill of unparalleled dimensions is presented in
familiar terms as yet another ‘‘complex problem’’ (PR IV)
to be mastered. BP remains fixated on an instrumental
understanding of its environment as a controllable obstacle
which is to be managed by ever-improving technology.
Like ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ before, it is a narrative of
high familiarization value, which draws on ‘‘acceptable and
uncontroversial frames of reference’’ (Starkey and Crane
2003, p. 227). If we are ‘‘looking not just for specific
actions, but for a sense of the values that are driving the
response’’ (Hart and McGinn 2010, unpublished) at BP,
there appears to be no change in the underlying values. Its
green communications continue to idealize unrestrained,

purely quantitative progress and accept the risks that this
entails as legitimate for the sake of profitability and com-
petitiveness (Chazan and Carlton 2010; Heubaum 2010).
If we consider BP’s green narratives in terms of how
they ‘‘might subvert, or otherwise impact on, managerial
intentions’’ (Preuss and Dawson 2009, p. 137), they remain
opposed to pre-emptive, sustainable CER. They could thus
be seen as a symptom of management priorities set in a
way which prevents a consequential dedication of resour-
ces to preventing accidents even where it cuts into profits
(Cline 2010). Also, they can be taken to reflect a corporate
culture which discourages a restraint on operations merely
123
because there is an intrinsic value assigned to the envi -
ronment potentially put at risk. Nor do they enable a
consequential diversification of the product portfolio into

fields where the environment takes the role of a provider,
rather than as BP’s opponent in a struggle for technical
superiority.
At least, it can be concluded that the company seems to
have learned one lesson through the crisis, namely the
boomerang effect of green communications: BP appears to
be more cautious about what is and what is not included in
its corporate narratives.
Case Study Implications
As the immediate crisis in the Gulf of Mexico abided and
its long-term ramifications—or lack thereof—became
apparent, BP and its entire industry claimed to have learned
important lessons, as BP stated in the campaign, claiming
that they had understood. Academic research in corporate
responsibility, too, should avail itself of BP’s integrity
crisis as a case study in ‘‘green lashing’’.
Prior research has argued that the need for substantive
greening and authenticity in its symbolic representations is

highest where transparency of corporate actions is ample or
increasing (Brown 1994), and where stakeholder demands
are inconsistent with primary company objectives (Bansal
and Kistruck 2006). The BP case, as it was discussed here,
illustrates that a third aspect needs to be added to this
equation, namely that substantive and symbolic greening
should especially not diverge where a corporation has been
differentiating itself on the grounds of CER. Legitimacy
crises as BP’s show that companies claiming green lead-
ership for themselves have to accept that their actions will
be met with tightened scrutiny and measured against
stricter standards.
Corporate greening remains a potential source of dif-
ferentiation and even competitive advantage, especially in
sectors which are—both, by intuition and with good rea-
son—not associated with environmental responsibility.
Yet, the lesson to be learned from BP is to insure that
symbolic representations are authentic enough to avoid a

green lashing effect when the degree of substantive CER
management becomes apparent. In the light of corporate
scandals, when symbolic actions are revealed to have
replaced, rather than represented substantive activities
(Bansal and Kistruck 2006), corporate environmental
legitimacy can be lost instantly, and recovered only at great
effort and expense.
In BP’s case, its apparent lack of substantive action in
CER stood in sharp contrast to the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-
spin. It was argued here that the green image created by
BP’s repositioning campaign can be accounted for by the
fact that its green narrative consistently evoked established
narrative patterns of the environmental paradigm. It was
therefore judged against the standards of narrative, rather
than empirical truth and as long as the requirements for
narrative truth were fulfilled, the narrative could be
accepted as speaking for the issuing company’s CER,
irrespective of whether it reflected substantive greening or

not.
Pitted against BP’s symbolic actions in the course of the
‘‘beyond petroleum’’-campaign, however, it fell short of
enabling substantive green change in BP’s core business.
With its strictly instrumental approach to the environment,
it is a typical example of what Preuss and Dawson (2009)
call an ‘‘enlightened self-interest narrative,’’ one which
considers CER in terms of prudent impression management
and cost cutting only. Thus, the values and objectives it
idealizes are opposed to those required for a company who
would indeed take the step beyond petroleum. BP’s green
narrative encodes the very corporate values and under-
standing of environmental responsibility which may have
kept the company from substantive greening. As such, it
did not constitute the kind of de-familiarization narrative
necessary to trigger or reinforce substantial change.
With regard to the ‘‘making this right’’-campaign, its
narrative analysis has demonstrated how BP’s response

communications were driven by its need to both, avoid
legal self-incrimination and counter the green lashing and
legitimacy loss it was faced with in comparison to the other
parties involved. Considering the uneven share of critique
which BP had to take as an effect of its prior differentiation
through symbolic greening, its communicative approach to
making things right had a certain re-legitimizing effect and
guarded BP against self-incrimination. At the same time,
though, it was to a degree insensitive toward those most
affected by the spill and also fell short of allowing for a
consequential change in BP’s underlying values.
This paper builds on a narrative approach to distinguish
between familiarization and de-familiarization narratives
of corporate responsibility. It has added a case study
example of a qualitative narrative analysis of CER narra-
tives to the research literature and contributes to a better
understanding of when green narratives constitute sub-
stantive corporate greening and when they might even

prevent it. The analyses have shown that BP’s green nar-
ratives can be read as symptoms of intrinsic barriers to
substantial green change in the oil company.
It has shown three things with regard to legitimacy
theory: First, it became apparent that strategic responses
that are different from compliance can indeed relate to
legitimacy in such a way that the public opinion is influ-
enced by communication that is not congruent with sub-
stantial action. Second, there are good reasons to assume
that this attempt to build legitimacy without substantive
123
actions has been severely punished. We cannot proof that
BP was punished throughout the crisis more severely than
it would have been without the green washing. However,
we have identified indicators that support this assumption.
Third, the case shows the crucial importance of moral

legitimacy. Even though the pragmatic legitimacy was
nearly untouched and unquestioned throughout the crisis,
the loss in moral legitimacy must be associated with the
significant drop in share prices that were observed.
The case study needs to address the potential for
researcher bias, since the identified narrative patterns may
be more significant in their implications to a researcher
familiar with and searching for their manifestations (Boje
2008; Crane 1999). In order to verify its findings with
regard to this limitation, the study focused on explaining
the impression management effect evoked and abstained
from allegations as far as the deliberation or intentionality
of BP’s communication strategies are concerned.
A clear limitation of this case study lies in its ‘‘narrow
event window’’ (Bansal and Clelland 2004, p. 96), contrasting
selective examples of BP’s CER communications ‘‘before’’
and ‘‘during/immediately after’’ the crisis in 2010. It remains
to be seen how the Deepwater Horizon disaster will be

emplotted in BP’s future narratives, whether green or other-
wise. Also, as a media and public response analysis, the study
does not attempt to judge BP’s actual shortcomings regarding
the crisis, but evaluates the reactions to it by stakeholders with
their own interest agendas and limited objectivity.
Rather than usurping an insolent stance of ‘‘you could
have seen it coming,’’ the paper aims to propose one
explanation for why corporate (environmental) responsi -
bility remains a concept much easier claimed than vali -
dated. It explains how a purely symbolic commitment to
CER can already have legitimacy-building effects, when
the corporate communications successfully evoke narra-
tives of the environmental paradigm and are therefore
judged against narrative, rather than empirical truth.
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123
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further
reproduction prohibited without
permission.

CHAPTER FIVE: LESSONS LEARNED
This government will learn the lessons of Hurricane Katrina.
We are going to review every action and make
necessary changes so that we are better prepared for any
challenge of nature, or act of evil men, that could
threaten our people.
-- President George W. Bush, September 15, 20051
The preceding chapters described the dynamics of the response
to Hurricane Katrina. While there were numerous
stories of great professionalism, courage, and compassion by
Americans from all walks of life, our task here is to
identify the critical challenges that undermined and prevented a
more efficient and effective Federal response. In
short, what were the key failures during the Federal response to
Hurricane Katrina?
Hurricane Katrina Critical Challenges
1. National Preparedness
2. Integrated Use of Military Capabilities
3. Communications
4. Logistics and Evacuations
5. Search and Rescue
6. Public Safety and Security

7. Public Health and Medical Support
8. Human Services
9. Mass Care and Housing
10. Public Communications
11. Critical Infrastructure and Impact Assessment
12. Environmental Hazards and Debris Removal
13. Foreign Assistance
14. Non-Governmental Aid
15. Training, Exercises, and Lessons Learned
16. Homeland Security Professional Development and Education
17. Citizen and Community Preparedness
We ask this question not to affix blame. Rather, we endeavor to
find the answers in order to identify systemic gaps
and improve our preparedness for the next disaster – natural or
man-made. We must move promptly to understand
precisely what went wrong and determine how we are going to
fix it.
After reviewing and analyzing the response to Hurricane
Katrina, we identified seventeen specific lessons the Federal
government has learned. These lessons, which flow from the
critical challenges we encountered, are depicted in the
accompanying text box. Fourteen of these critical challenges
were highlighted in the preceding Week of Crisis section
and range from high-level policy and planning issues (e.g., the

Integrated Use of Military Capabilities) to operational
matters (e.g., Search and Rescue).2 Three other challenges –
Training, Exercises, and Lessons Learned; Homeland
Security Professional Development and Education; and Citizen
and Community Preparedness – are interconnected
to the others but reflect measures and institutions that improve
our preparedness more broadly. These three will be
discussed in the Report’s last chapter, Transforming National
Preparedness.
Some of these seventeen critical challenges affected all aspects
of the Federal response. Others had an impact on a
specific, discrete operational capability. Yet each, particularly
when taken in aggregate, directly affected the overall
efficiency and effectiveness of our efforts. This chapter
summarizes the challenges that ultimately led to the lessons
we have learned. Over one hundred recommendations for
corrective action flow from these lessons and are outlined
in detail in Appendix A of the Report.
Critical Challenge: National Preparedness
Our current system for homeland security does not provide the
necessary framework to manage the challenges
posed by 21st Century catastrophic threats. But to be clear, it is
unrealistic to think that even the strongest framework
can perfectly anticipate and overcome all challenges in a crisis.
While we have built a response system that ably
handles the demands of a typical hurricane season, wildfires,
and other limited natural and man-made disasters, the
system clearly has structural flaws for addressing catastrophic
events. During the Federal response to Katrina3, four
critical flaws in our national preparedness became evident: Our

processes for unified management of the national
response; command and control structures within the Federal
government; knowledge of our preparedness plans;
and regional planning and coordination. A discussion of each
follows below.
Unified Management of the National Response
Effective incident management of catastrophic events requires
coordination of a wide range of organizations and
activities, public and private. Under the current response
framework, the Federal government merely “coordinates”
resources to meet the needs of local and State governments
based upon their requests for assistance. Pursuant to
the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the
National Response Plan (NRP), Federal and State
agencies build their command and coordination structures to
support the local command and coordination structures
during an emergency. Yet this framework does not address the
conditions of a catastrophic event with large scale
competing needs, insufficient resources, and the absence of
functioning local governments. These limitations proved
to be major inhibitors to the effective marshalling of Federal,
State, and local resources to respond to Katrina.
Soon after Katrina made landfall, State and local authorities
understood the devastation was serious but, due to the
destruction of infrastructure and response capabilities, lacked
the ability to communicate with each other and
coordinate a response. Federal officials struggled to perform
responsibilities generally conducted by State and local
authorities, such as the rescue of citizens stranded by the rising
floodwaters, provision of law enforcement, and
evacuation of the remaining population of New Orleans, all
without the benefit of prior planning or a functioning
State/local incident command structure to guide their efforts.

The Federal government cannot and should not be the Nation’s
first responder. State and local governments are best
positioned to address incidents in their jurisdictions and will
always play a large role in disaster response. But
Americans have the right to expect that the Federal government
will effectively respond to a catastrophic incident.
When local and State governments are overwhelmed or
incapacitated by an event that has reached catastrophic
proportions, only the Federal government has the resources and
capabilities to respond. The Federal government
must therefore plan, train, and equip to meet the requirements
for responding to a catastrophic event.
Command and Control Within the Federal Government
In terms of the management of the Federal response, our
architecture of command and control mechanisms as well
as our existing structure of plans did not serve us well.
Command centers in the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) and elsewhere in the Federal government had unclear,
and often overlapping, roles and responsibilities that
were exposed as flawed during this disaster. The Secretary of
Homeland Security, is the President’s principal Federal
official for domestic incident management, but he had difficulty
coordinating the disparate activities of Federal
departments and agencies. The Secretary lacked real-time,
accurate situational awareness of both the facts from the
disaster area as well as the on-going response activities of the
Federal, State, and local players.
The National Response Plan’s Mission Assignment process
proved to be far too bureaucratic to support the response
to a catastrophe. Melvin Holden, Mayor-President of Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, noted that, “requirements for paper
work and form completions hindered immediate action and

deployment of people and materials to assist in rescue
and recovery efforts.”4 Far too often, the process required
numerous time consuming approval signatures and data
processing steps prior to any action, delaying the response. As a
result, many agencies took action under their own
independent authorities while also responding to mission
assignments from the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), creating further process confusion and
potential duplication of efforts.
This lack of coordination at the Federal headquarters-level
reflected confusing organizational structures in the field.
As noted in the Week of Crisis chapter, because the Principal
Federal Official (PFO) has coordination authority but
lacks statutory authority over the Federal Coordinating Officer
(FCO), inefficiencies resulted when the second PFO
was appointed. The first PFO appointed for Katrina did not have
this problem because, as the Director of FEMA, he
was able to directly oversee the FCOs because they fell under
his supervisory authority.5 Future plans should ensure
that the PFO has the authority required to execute these
responsibilities.
Moreover, DHS did not establish its NRP-specified disaster site
multi-agency coordination center—the Joint Field
Office (JFO)—until after the height of the crisis.6 Further,
without subordinate JFO structures to coordinate Federal
response actions near the major incident sites, Federal response
efforts in New Orleans were not initially well-
coordinated.7
Lastly, the Emergency Support Functions (ESFs) did not
function as envisioned in the NRP. First, since the ESFs do

not easily integrate into the NIMS Incident Command System
(ICS) structure, competing systems were implemented
in the field – one based on the ESF structure and a second based
on the ICS. Compounding the coordination
problem, the agencies assigned ESF responsibilities did not
respect the role of the PFO. As VADM Thad Allen stated,
“The ESF structure currently prevents us from coordinating
effectively because if agencies responsible for their
respective ESFs do not like the instructions they are r eceiving
from the PFO at the field level, they go to their
headquarters in Washington to get decisions reversed. This is
convoluted, inefficient, and inappropriate during
emergency conditions. Time equals lives saved.”
Knowledge and Practice in the Plans
At the most fundamental level, part of the explanation for why
the response to Katrina did not go as planned is that
key decision-makers at all levels simply were not familiar with
the plans. The NRP was relatively new to many at the
Federal, State, and local levels before the events of Hurricane
Katrina.8 This lack of understanding of the “National”
plan not surprisingly resulted in ineffective coordination of the
Federal, State, and local response. Additionally, the
NRP itself provides only the ‘base plan’ outlining the overall
elements of a response: Federal departments and
agencies were required to develop supporting operational plans
and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to
integrate their activities into the national response.9 In almost
all cases, the integrating SOPs were either non-existent
or still under development when Hurricane Katrina hit.
Consequently, some of the specific procedures and processes
of the NRP were not properly implemented, and Federal
partners had to operate without any prescribed guidelines or
chains of command.

Furthermore, the JFO staff and other deployed Federal
personnel often lacked a working knowledge of NIMS or even
a basic understanding of ICS principles. As a result, valuable
time and resources were diverted to provide on-the-job
ICS training to Federal personnel assigned to the JFO. This
inability to place trained personnel in the JFO had a
detrimental effect on operations, as there were not enough
qualified persons to staff all of the required positions. We
must require all incident management personnel to have a
working knowledge of NIMS and ICS principles.
Insufficient Regional Planning and Coordination
The final structural flaw in our current system for national
preparedness is the weakness of our regional planning and
coordination structures. Guidance to governments at all levels is
essential to ensure adequate preparedness for
major disasters across the Nation. To this end, the Interim
National Preparedness Goal (NPG) and Target
Capabilities List (TCL) can assist Federal, State, and local
governments to: identify and define required capabilities
and what levels of those capabilities are needed; establish
priorities within a resource-constrained environment;
clarify and understand roles and responsibilities in the national
network of homeland security capabilities; and
develop mutual aid agreements.
Since incorporating FEMA in March 2003, DHS has spread
FEMA’s planning and coordination capabilities and
responsibilities among DHS’s other offices and bureaus. DHS
also did not maintain the personnel and resources of
FEMA’s regional offices.10 FEMA’s ten regional offices are
responsible for assisting multiple States and planning for
disasters, developing mitigation programs, and meeting their
needs when major disasters occur. During Katrina, eight
out of the ten FEMA Regional Directors were serving in an

acting capacity and four of the six FEMA headquarters
operational division directors were serving in an acting
capacity. While qualified acting directors filled in, it placed
extra burdens on a staff that was already stretched to meet the
needs left by the vacancies.
Additionally, many FEMA programs that were operated out of
the FEMA regions, such as the State and local liaison
program and all grant programs, have moved to DHS
headquarters in Washington. When programs operate out of
regional offices, closer relationships are developed among all
levels of government, providing for stronger
relationships at all levels. By the same token, regional
personnel must remember that they represent the interests of
the Federal government and must be cautioned against losing
objectivity or becoming mere advocates of State and
local interests. However, these relationships are critical when a
crisis situation develops, because individuals who
have worked and trained together daily will work together more
effectively during a crisis.
Lessons Learned:
The Federal government should work with its homeland security
partners in revising existing plans, ensuring a
functional operational structure - including within regions - and
establishing a clear, accountable process for all
National preparedness efforts. In doing so, the Federal
government must:
re organized, trained,
and equipped to perform their response
roles.

Critical Challenge: Integrated Use of Military Capabilities
The Federal response to Hurricane Katrina demonstrates that the
Department of Defense (DOD) has the capability to
play a critical role in the Nation’s response to catastrophic
events. During the Katrina response, DOD – both National
Guard and active duty forces – demonstrated that along with the
Coast Guard it was one of the only Federal
departments that possessed real operational capabilities to
translate Presidential decisions into prompt, effective
action on the ground. In addition to possessing operational
personnel in large numbers that have been trained and
equipped for their missions, DOD brought robust
communications infrastructure, logistics, and planning
capabilities.
Since DOD, first and foremost, has its critical overseas mission,
the solution to improving the Federal response to
future catastrophes cannot simply be “let the Department of
Defense do it.” Yet DOD capabilities must be better
identified and integrated into the Nation’s response plans.
The Federal response to Hurricane Katrina highlighted various
challenges in the use of military capabilities during
domestic incidents. For instance, limitations under Federal law
and DOD policy caused the active duty military to be
dependent on requests for assistance. These limitations resulted
in a slowed application of DOD resources during the
initial response. Further, active duty military and National
Guard operations were not coordinated and served two
different bosses, one the President and the other the Governor.
Limitations to Department of Defense Response Authority

For Federal domestic disaster relief operations, DOD currently
uses a “pull” system that provides support to civil
authorities based upon specific requests from local, State, or
Federal authorities.11 This process can be slow and
bureaucratic. Assigning active duty military forces or
capabilities to support disaster relief efforts usually requires a
request from FEMA12, an assessment by DOD on whether the
request can be supported, approval by the Secretary
of Defense or his designated representative, and a mission
assignment for the military forces or capabilities to
provide the requested support. From the time a request is
initiated until the military force or capability is delivered to
the disaster site requires a 21-step process.13 While this overly
bureaucratic approach has been adequate for most
disasters, in a catastrophic event like Hurricane Katrina the
delays inherent in this “pull” system of responding to
requests resulted in critical needs not being met.14 One could
imagine a situation in which a catastrophic event is of
such a magnitude that it would require an even greater role for
the Department of Defense. For these reasons, we
should both expedite the mission assignment request and the
approval process, but also define the circumstances
under which we will push resources to State and local
governments absent a request.
Unity of Effort among Active Duty Forces and the National
Guard
In the overall response to Hurricane Katrina, separate command
structures for active duty military and the National
Guard hindered their unity of effort. U.S. Northern Command
(USNORTHCOM) commanded active duty forces, while
each State government commanded its National Guard forces.
For the first two days of Katrina response operations,
USNORTHCOM did not have situational awareness of what
forces the National Guard had on the ground. Joint Task

Force Katrina (JTF-Katrina) simply could not operate at full
efficiency when it lacked visibility of over half the military
forces in the disaster area.15 Neither the Louisiana National
Guard nor JTF-Katrina had a good sense for where each
other’s forces were located or what they were doing. For
example, the JTF-Katrina Engineering Directorate had not
been able to coordinate with National Guard forces in the New
Orleans area. As a result, some units were not
immediately assigned missions matched to on-the-ground
requirements. Further, FEMA requested assistance from
DOD without knowing what State National Guard forces had
already deployed to fill the same needs.16
Also, the Commanding General of JTF-Katrina and the Adjutant
Generals (TAGs) of Louisiana and Mississippi had
only a coordinating relationship, with no formal command
relationship established. This resulted in confusion over
roles and responsibilities between National Guard and Federal
forces and highlights the need for a more unified
command structure.17
Structure and Resources of the National Guard
As demonstrated during the Hurricane Katrina response, the
National Guard Bureau (NGB) is a significant joint force
provider for homeland security missions. Throughout the
response, the NGB provided continuous and integrated
reporting of all National Guard assets deployed in both a
Federal and non-Federal status to USNORTHCOM, Joint
Forces Command, Pacific Command, and the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense. This is an
important step toward achieving unity of effort. However,
NGB’s role in homeland security is not yet clearly defined.

The Chief of the NGB has made a recommendation to the
Secretary of Defense that NGB be chartered as a joint
activity of the DOD.18 Achieving these efforts will serve as the
foundation for National Guard transformation and
provide a total joint force capability for homeland security
missions.19
Lessons Learned:
The Departments of Homeland Security and Defense should
jointly plan for the Department of Defense’s support of
Federal response activities as well as those extraordinary
circumstances when it is appropriate for the Department of
Defense to lead the Federal response. In addition, the
Department of Defense should ensure the transformation of
the National Guard is focused on increased integration with
active duty forces for homeland security plans and
activities.
Critical Challenge: Communications
Hurricane Katrina destroyed an unprecedented portion of the
core communications infrastructure throughout the Gulf
Coast region. As described earlier in the Report, the storm
debilitated 911 emergency call centers, disrupting local
emergency services.20 Nearly three million customers lost
telephone service. Broadcast communications, including
50 percent of area radio stations and 44 percent of area
television stations, similarly were affected.21 More than
50,000 utility poles were toppled in Mississippi alone, meaning
that even if telephone call centers and electricity
generation capabilities were functioning, the connections to the
customers were broken.22 Accordingly, the
communications challenges across the Gulf Coast region in
Hurricane Katrina’s wake were more a problem of
basic operability23, than one of equipment or system

interoperability.24 The complete devastation of the
communications infrastructure left emergency responders and
citizens without a reliable network across which they
could coordinate.25
Although Federal, State, and local agencies had communications
plans and assets in place, these plans and assets
were neither sufficient nor adequately integrated to respond
effectively to the disaster.26 Many available
communications assets were not utilized fully because there was
no national, State-wide, or regional communications
plan to incorporate them. For example, despite their
contributions to the response effort, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service’s radio cache—the largest
civilian cache of radios in the United States—had
additional radios available that were not utilized.27
Federal, State, and local governments have not yet completed a
comprehensive strategy to improve operability and
interoperability to meet the needs of emergency responders.28
This inability to connect multiple communications
plans and architectures clearly impeded coordination and
communication at the Federal, State, and local levels. A
comprehensive, national emergency communications strategy is
needed to confront the challenges of incorporating
existing equipment and practices into a constantly changing
technological and cultural environment.29
Lessons Learned:
The Department of Homeland Security should review our
current laws, policies, plans, and strategies relevant to
communications. Upon the conclusion of this review, the
Homeland Security Council, with support from the Office of

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