Desenvolvimento sustentável empresarial: discurso corporativo da Vale e risco (Barragem de Brumadinho)

Abstract

This dissertation intends to elucidate the way how Vale S.A.'s sustainable development discourse hid or shrinked the menace of breaking the ore tailing´s dam in Brumadinho. This work is founded on the literature on sustainable development as reguards to the mining sector, does a critical reflection on its social and environmental impacts of the business, identifies and contextualizes the company's sustainable development strategies, problematization of existing socio-environmental quarrels as a product of mining exploitation, recognizing interests and inspirations and differentiating the firm's discourse from the community tangled and affected (directly and indirectly) by the dam collapse. The work ponders that the mining business, one of the main export commodities of the national economy, when producing, generates social and environmental disputes, promotes the shortage of natural resources and uncovers society to risk factors. It turns out that Vale works with the notion of sustainable development to legitimize the creation of wealth and conceal the social and environmental risks emerging from its activity. The dissertation begins from the comprehension that the notion of Sustainable Development (SD) went through an institutionalization process that characterized mainly for the making of agreement between practices, interests and distinct visions of economic development and the environment. This investigation embraces discourse not only as a method of analysis, but also as a theoretical choice. In consequence, the discourse will penetrate each fase of the methodological design process, from a systematic revision, to the comparison between SD practices and discourses at Vale SA - not only the business discourse, but also the discourse of the various participants who are connected to the firm. The research methodology used was Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the main sources of research were the institutionalization of the concept of sustainability (NOBRE, 2002), risk society (BECK, 2020), and language and power (FAIRCLOUGH, 1989). It was found that Vale utilizes the notion of sustainable development to legitimize the generation of wealth, hiding the social and environmental risks that comes from its operation. Furthermore, the firm influences a network of actors, depending on their interests, through symbolic and political administrative elements, to add resources to their discourse.