The Interpretative "Green" in the Building: Diachronic and Synchronic

The aim of this paper is to link the historical development of green building on a national level to current actions and interpretations on an organizational level, addressing this issue from two perspectives: a diachronic perspective and a synchronic perspective. Using a social constructivist model as a theoretical framework, we analyzed the interplay between green discourse and green action in the management of the environment. We explore the interpretative flexibility of “green building” as it has been constructed, communicated, and interpreted through time and across institutional and organizational boundaries. The empirical basis consists of a literature review and a qualitative study of three municipal housing companies in western Sweden. We found that the plurality of meanings of “green building” allows competing ideologies and special interests to gain rhetorical prominence and to influence decision-makers’ views of what is to be prioritized. To conclude, there seem to be strong incentives to make use of ambiguity rather than clarity in relation to green building.