Sustainability paradox of platform companies: mediated legitimacy in public discourse

This study examines how sustainability claims of a platform company are constructed, contested, and evaluated through mediated public discourse. Drawing on a qualitative media analysis of Estonian media coverage, reader comments, and corporate sustainability communications related to the Estonian mobility platform company Bolt between 2019 and 2024, the paper adopts a sustainability paradox perspective to analyze tensions between corporate narratives and public legitimacy judgments. The findings reveal three interrelated paradoxes. First, environmental sustainability initiatives framed as contributions to green mobility are frequently interpreted as symbolic or cosmetic, generating accusations of greenwashing. Second, social sustainability claims emphasizing flexibility and opportunity are contradicted by lived experiences of platform workers and users, producing friction between responsibility rhetoric and everyday service realities. Third, governance-related sustainability narratives are undermined by perceived accountability gaps, as platform self-positioning clashes with public expectations of regulation and responsibility. Together, these findings demonstrate that sustainability in platform companies is not assessed solely through performance indicators but is continuously negotiated in public discourse, where media framing and reader-commenters play a constitutive role in shaping legitimacy. The study contributes to sustainability and platform economy research by highlighting mediated legitimacy as a central discursive process through which sustainability paradoxes emerge and persist.