IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jpolrf/v28y2025i3p344-370.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Towards a green, clean, resilient world? Organisational hypocrisy in the World Bank’s environmental agenda

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholas Nägele
  • Matthias Thiemann

Abstract

Development finance struggles with mainstreaming sustainability and environmental protection. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the World Bank, which has committed to extensive sustainability policies but whose environmental record is harshly criticised. This article aims at reconciling these contrasting observations. We utilise digital text analysis methodology to trace the treatment of environmental issues in World Bank rhetoric and policy. Our findings indicate that the World Bank’s environmental agenda is a case of organisational hypocrisy. While the bank presents sustainability and environmental protection as fundamental to its development approach, consideration of environmental issues in its policy planning documents remains marginal.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas Nägele & Matthias Thiemann, 2025. "Towards a green, clean, resilient world? Organisational hypocrisy in the World Bank’s environmental agenda," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 344-370, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jpolrf:v:28:y:2025:i:3:p:344-370
    DOI: 10.1080/17487870.2025.2499279
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17487870.2025.2499279
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/17487870.2025.2499279?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jpolrf:v:28:y:2025:i:3:p:344-370. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/GPRE19 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.