How do you depict sustainability? An analysis of images posted on Instagram by sustainable fashion companies

ABSTRACT Sustainability is strongly becoming imperative for all fashion companies to respond to stakeholders’ concerns and meet their expectations. While companies are more and more engaged in sustainability practices regarding all the activities carried out, there is also a growing opportunity for them to communicate it to reinforce the brand through various means. One of these is undoubtedly represented by social media. The social media landscape is increasingly characterized by the use of images as a highly impactful way of communication, with image-based social media such as Instagram that are experiencing significant growth among consumers and businesses. Consequently, the paper aims to understand how sustainability is depicted through Instagram by sustainable fashion companies. For these reasons, the paper investigates the use of images on Instagram by two sustainable fashion brands, Patagonia and Stella McCartney. To this aim, the paper employs the visual content analysis on over 300 pictures downloaded from the two corporate accounts on Instagram. The findings show the most used image categories to depict sustainability, and how such categories generate online interaction with users in terms of digital engagement. Implications for sustainable fashion companies and social media managers are provided.