Speaking Up for the Natural Landscape: A Rhetorical Dilemma

This article presents textual evidence which shows some of the ways in which green business corporations andenvironmental NGOs represent the natural landscape and their relationship with it. It reviews the origin anddevelopment of stakeholder dialogue and questions to what extent such dialogue can contribute to a process ofcorporate change. It shows how the corporations use different language to represent nature than the NGOs andprovides evidence suggesting that the green corporations understand their relationship with the natural landscapedifferently. NGOs that wish to speak up for the natural landscape, face a rhetorical dilemma which has animportant implication for their practice. Either they can enter into a stakeholder dialogue with business and riskbecoming a party to the exploitive management of nature, or they can refrain from entering into a dialogue andrisk becoming marginalised