The framing of climate change discourse by Statoil

Abstract This article involves a qualitative framing analysis of climate change discourse by Statoil, a Norwegian-based energy corporation, which is considered to be a major actor in the Norwegian fossil fuels market. The corpus of the present framing analysis consists of Statoil’s annual sustainability reports from 2001 until 2015 available online at the official Statoil website www.statoil.com. The framing analysis is based upon the methodological approach to framing described by Dahl (2015). The specific research aim of the present investigation is twofold: i) to identify Statoil’s framing of climate change discourse and ii) to compare how the framing changed diachronically from the time of the first sustainability report published in 2001 until the 2015 Sustainability Report. The results of the framing analysis indicate that Statoil’s climate change discourse in 2001-2015 is framed by a number of qualitatively different frames that are unequally distributed in diachrony, e.g. “Anthropogenic Cause”, “Battle”, “Corporate Responsibility”, “Emissions Reduction” etc. These frames are further presented and discussed in the article.