Are grievance systems examples of performative private environmental governance? Evidence from the palm oil sector

Corporate grievance procedures originated as tools to remedy companies’ human rights abuses. Today, they are increasingly used as tools to enforce private environmental regulation along companies’ supply chains. Using the example of zero-deforestation commitment enforcement in the palm oil sector, this paper asks: How do companies respond to grievance cases lodged against them, and what does this tell us about the use of grievance procedures for sustainability governance enforcement? We draw on the theoretical framework of performative governance, which to date has been applied at the state level, and applying it to private governance enforcement. The framework argues that when policy-makers’ public expectations exceeds their governance capacity, they may start using theatrical and symbolic efforts to give stakeholders an impression of good governance. To understand whether grievance mechanisms are used for substantive or performative purposes, we draw on a range of qualitative and quantitative data, combining interview data with a comprehensive dataset of 1675 grievance cases raised against 26 palm oil companies in the years 2010 to 2022, and use statistical and text-as-data methods to analyze the way grievance procedures have been used to date. While we identify some transformative potential, over one third of cases remain unresolved. Given the colluding interest of both committed companies and non-compliant suppliers to maintain the status quo, blame-shifting by non-compliant actors is frequently accepted by committed companies without question, while other cases remain stuck in procedural disputes with limited transparency over their progress. This sheds doubt on the adequacy of this tool for compliance enforcement. At the same time, we find variety in the extent and fashion in which companies justify their decisions on their public-facing grievance logs, signaling that grievance procedures may be used as a legitimizing tool especially for companies under higher public scrutiny.