Selling Sustainability, Concealing Substance: Sustainability Glorification as a Discursive Strategy in Indonesia Digital Advertising

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-622-2_3How to use a DOI?

Keywords

sustainability glorification; green advertising; sustainable communication; advertising; green washing

Abstract

The proliferation of sustainability claims in digital advertising has intensified alongside Indonesia’s growing green consumer market, yet such claims are increasingly mediated by algorithmic platforms that amplify visually compelling environmental narratives over substantive ecological practice. This study examines how Instagram and TikTok advertisements for Aqua and Scarlett Whitening construct what this research conceptualizes as sustainability glorification that discursive strategy that elevates environmental rhetoric through hyperbole, nature mythologization, and symbolic appropriation of environmental movements, while obscuring the gap between corporate claims and actual ecological impact. Unlike conventional greenwashing, which centers on explicit false claims, sustainability glorification operates through subtler mechanisms embedded within algorithm-driven content ecosystems that reward emotionally resonant, aesthetically curated green imagery over verifiable environmental accountability. Employing Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis across three dimensions; textual, discursive practice, and sociocultural practice; this research analyzes a corpus of 60 advertisements (30 from each brand) published between 2022 and 2024. Textual analysis identifies linguistic strategies (euphemism, modality, nominalization) and multimodal elements (color symbolism, nature imagery) that construct green authenticity. Discursive practice analysis examines production, platform-specific distribution patterns, and audience reception within algorithmic feed logics that prioritize virality over critical scrutiny. Sociocultural analysis situates findings within Indonesia’s green capitalism context, revealing how platform algorithms inadvertently reinforce corporate sustainability narratives by privileging visually persuasive content. Comparative findings between a beverage brand (Aqua) and a beauty brand (Scarlett) reveal sector-specific glorification strategies, yet both demonstrate how algorithmic environments shape advertising discourse toward affective persuasion rather than substantive transparency. This research contributes a novel theoretical framework for understanding greenwashing in algorithmically-mediated communication ecosystems, offering critical insight for advertising regulation, platform accountability, and consumer media literacy in the context of digital sustainability marketing across Southeast Asia.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ratna Triwurian Danu
AU  - Novika Adi Wibowo
AU  - Fairuza Arindra
AU  - Yuventia Prisca Diyanti
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/06
TI  - Selling Sustainability, Concealing Substance: Sustainability Glorification as a Discursive Strategy in Indonesia Digital Advertising
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Communication, Digital Ecosystem, and Society (ICODES 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 13
EP  - 38
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-622-2_3
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-622-2_3
ID  - Danu2026
ER  -