The Sustainable Development Goals in the Light of Global Mining Activities
A Radical Shift?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2026.i28.1677Keywords:
Critical Discourse Analysis, Corpus linguistics, Sustainability reporting, Mining sector, Sustainable Development GoalsAbstract
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) constitute a milestone in sustainable development governance. The seventeen goals shape how humanity sees and measures sustainable development. All-encompassing as the SDGs are, they have influenced mining company reporting practices. Mining is a major industrial sector with substantial direct emissions (Scope 1 and 2), which increase with decreasing ore grades and increasing production (Norgate and Haque 2010).
The present paper investigates how mining companies have adapted their sustainability reports in response to the SDGs. The paper examines the framing of sustainability discourse through keyness (log likelihood) and dispersion analysis (DPnorm), relative frequency, and statistical strength of collocates (MI3). For this purpose, a 774,016 token corpus was assembled. Subsequently, the adopted corpus linguistic approach is complemented with Critical Discourse Analysis: the mining company sustainability reports over a period of eight years are investigated with reference to the timeframe before and after the ratification of the SDGs as a diachronic evolution of sustainability discourse in corporate texts.
Results do not suggest a shift in the overall volume of sustainability discourse but in its framing, notably through institutionalization and SDG alignment. Environmental concerns remain frequently subordinated to economic priorities, rendering the former physically and linguistically erased.
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