What Makes Ecological Responsibility Endure? Sustainability Grammars Under Planetary Limits
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for the opportunity to review this engaging manuscript. The author presents a clear and measured argument—that, both in rhetoric and policy, “scale has been overextended—carrying ethical and political demands it is poorly suited to address, particularly under conditions of planetary limits and uneven ecological harm”—and, also, a framework for future analysis of sustainability discourses. The writing is clean and clear, if a bit verbose in spots. In presenting five themes of scalability and six alternative lenses for analyzing embedded values/perspectives in sustainability governance, the author states that their aim is “not to elevate these grammars as definitive, but to render visible a set of analytic distinctions that have proven especially salient for diagnosing how ecological responsibility is negotiated—and often narrowed—under planetary limits”; this aim is achieved, though the author could more explicitly engage their methods for identifying these “grammars” and evidence demonstrating their value.
As an academic professional trained in analysis of environmental communication and rhetoric, I am fond of this study and its argument, but I am also, admittedly, skeptical of its claims because it does not engage, build upon, or apply concepts and methods from existing work in discourse analysis or environmental rhetorical criticism. The categories/grammars identified are plausible and even applicable, but existing discourse and communication scholarship would demand that the categories be developed from (and, therefore, after/following) extended analysis and engagement with texts, not (as appears to be the case in the current manuscript) developed a priori, in the mind of the critic, and only then applied to the text as an analytical frame. It may be that the categories and grammars were not developed a priori, but that’s not clear in the current draft, and I urge the author to more directly engage the wealth of already existing environmental communication/discourse scholarship in developing/presenting their analytical frames.
For this reason, I see good potential in this essay, but I urge to the author to make some additions and amendments before the manuscript is ready for publication.
First, in brief, while the five themes of scalability and six alternative lenses are clearly defined and plausible, I was left wondering HOW, exactly, they were determined. Is the author building off of existing literature, or identifying the terms/trends entirely on their own? If it is the latter, the author should more clearly detail their method for developing the terms, themes, and trends. When writing on the six alternative lenses, the author notes that the framework “emerges from the author’s sustained analytic engagement with sustainability governance across research, practitioner, and policymaking contexts over nearly three decades,” but that lacks detail. The author should say more about how specific texts and documents justify the selection/identification of the lenses/frames/themes. Otherwise, it risks sounding as if the author simply identified categories on their own, based on their own personal/subjective notions, and then applied them, blanket-wise, to discourse. This is all the more the case when the author reaches Section 4, the brief analytical section, in which the author applies the analytical framework to what is admittedly identified as a convenience sample, that “functions less as a stand-alone evidentiary contribution and more as a means of advancing the paper’s broader conceptual argument.”
Overall, this manuscript would benefit significantly from the addition of more illustrative examples of each of its grammars and lenses. The grammars and lenses are clearly defined, but the author should provide clear and directly quoted examples of each throughout the essay (not just in Section 4) to illustrate each and to support claims that they are recurrent or “especially salient” (in Section 2.1, for example, the author asserts that that the five themes of scalability are “especially salient” and “recurring evaluative criteria” but does not give examples to demonstrate that this is a the case; I urge them to please give/cite examples of each to justify the identification of these themes as “especially salient”—otherwise, the analytical framework and terminology presented is clear and tidy but not empirically evidenced in the manuscript itself).
Secondly, and significantly, the perspective applied is Anglo-centric and entirely focused on Western/Global North discourses (and, yes, this includes the ostensibly global United Nations discourse and governance, which is still directly influenced by a Western and economically-driven model). The manuscript lacks cultural context for its claims about sustainability discourse and policy, but is apparently only engaging discourse and policy from Anglophonic and Western capitalist systems. And, in fact, sustainability governance through scale is entirely to be expected in such cultural contexts, as all other governance, including health and welfare, education, and artistic expression are also guided by economic frames of growth and scale/scalability—where, as the author writes, as “plans move toward implementation, accountability, and verification,” responsibility and policy are frequently articulated “through the grammar of scale—privileging metrics, replicability, and temporal boundedness over permanence, settlement, and obligation.” It’s not unexpected that scale would dominate discourse and governance in an American or Western capitalist societal context, but this may not be the case other global contexts. The author should be careful to explicitly identify the scope of their claims about discourse and lenses, recognizing that this manuscript does not engage discourses of governance from other geographic, cultural, or ideological contexts.
When reading, I wondered repeatedly whether these grammars would extend to other languages and language systems, and explicitly limiting the scope/context of the manuscript’s claims would help avoid these questions.
Beyond these two broader points, I also have some smaller questions/points for revision for the author (that I urge them to address), listed here:
- In Section 5.2, engaging “Implications for Policymakers,” you urge policymakers to change their grammar in “monitoring frameworks, performance indicators, reporting cycles, and funding criteria.” However: I think it’s really quite possible that some (or, even, many or most) policymakers and grant writers are already very aware that grammars of scale are not accurately suited to their exigences but are still intentionally, explicitly electing such grammars of scale anyway, given that the powers of conservatism, extractivism, capital, deregulation, and wealth currently (and for some time now) hold the powers of governance and funding in much of the region you analyze. That is: it’s not that those working to promote sustainable policy favor or subconsciously default to these frames of scale, but, rather that those frames of scale are the only frames seen as legitimate by those in authority and, thus, the most effective for soliciting change (or, at the very least, not cutting off future discussion) in the current social and political climate. I urge the author to consider this when constructing their appeal to policymakers, practitioners, activists, and other sustainability-invested parties.
- Why does the author not more directly engage the work on environmental and sustainability discourse already developed in Communication Studes and Rhetoric? The author appears to be directly engaging ideas developed in canonical works like Kenneth Burke’s A Grammar of Motives and George Lakoff & Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By, so I was surprised to see that neither was cited. If the author is unfamiliar with this work, I urge them to read both texts, as they may inform this and future manuscripts.
- I also urge the author to review, draw from, and engage relevant work in the journal Environmental Communication, so as to engage in direct dialogue with other thinkers asking similar questions about sustainability discourse, themes, and framing. One of the most respected and cited scholars in environmental rhetoric studies, Greg Dickinson, is actually affiliated with the author’s home institution; perhaps the author could meet with and/or consult Dr. Dickinson directly as they polish and develop their analytical framework.
- In Section 2.1, you assert, “Sustainability initiatives that expand, replicate, generate metrics, begin as pilots, and preserve an exit are widely recognized as legitimate and effective.” But this is a passive construction. Can you make it an active construction, identifying by whom the indicatives are “recognized as legitimate and effective?”
- In Section 2.2, you assert, “Funding agencies, governments, and large organizations are accustomed to evaluating programs using comparable indicators and time-bound deliverables.” This sounds plausible, but, here again, it would help if you could give some specific examples of such agencies, governments, and large organizations to illustrate and evidence your point.
This feedback/questioning is not meant to deter the author but, rather, to encourage them to refine the manuscript into its best possible form. I would be eager to read and review this work again with more explicitly reflexive/delineated cultural context and more illustrative examples for its methods and frames.
Author Response
Comment 1:
Thank you for the opportunity to review this engaging manuscript. The author presents a clear and measured argument—that, both in rhetoric and policy, “scale has been overextended—carrying ethical and political demands it is poorly suited to address, particularly under conditions of planetary limits and uneven ecological harm”—and, also, a framework for future analysis of sustainability discourses. The writing is clean and clear, if a bit verbose in spots. In presenting five themes of scalability and six alternative lenses for analyzing embedded values/perspectives in sustainability governance, the author states that their aim is “not to elevate these grammars as definitive, but to render visible a set of analytic distinctions that have proven especially salient for diagnosing how ecological responsibility is negotiated—and often narrowed—under planetary limits”; this aim is achieved, though the author could more explicitly engage their methods for identifying these “grammars” and evidence demonstrating their value.
As an academic professional trained in analysis of environmental communication and rhetoric, I am fond of this study and its argument, but I am also, admittedly, skeptical of its claims because it does not engage, build upon, or apply concepts and methods from existing work in discourse analysis or environmental rhetorical criticism. The categories/grammars identified are plausible and even applicable, but existing discourse and communication scholarship would demand that the categories be developed from (and, therefore, after/following) extended analysis and engagement with texts, not (as appears to be the case in the current manuscript) developed a priori, in the mind of the critic, and only then applied to the text as an analytical frame. It may be that the categories and grammars were not developed a priori, but that’s not clear in the current draft, and I urge the author to more directly engage the wealth of already existing environmental communication/discourse scholarship in developing/presenting their analytical frames.
Response 1:
Thank you for pushing me to clarify. In response, I have substantially revised Section 3 to situate the analytic approach more explicitly. The “plural” grammars, as explained, are derived from the scholarly literature—this is, in some ways, a literature review on the topic. At the same time, as analytic categories, these grammars have likewise been observed in my own work in this space. I then explain in the text how this approach, presented in Section 3, aligns with fields such as interpretive policy analysis, where analytic frames are refined iteratively through comparative engagement with policy materials, and with STS traditions in which concepts emerge through recursive interplay between empirical sites and theoretical engagement with scholarly literature. Section 4 then applies this stabilized analytic architecture to a bounded set of adaptation planning documents to trace how these orientations are sequenced and narrowed under accountability pressures. Note, too, that the intro paragraphs of Section 4 have been revised and expanded to better explain the analytical strategy.
Comment 2:
For this reason, I see good potential in this essay, but I urge to the author to make some additions and amendments before the manuscript is ready for publication.
First, in brief, while the five themes of scalability and six alternative lenses are clearly defined and plausible, I was left wondering HOW, exactly, they were determined. Is the author building off of existing literature, or identifying the terms/trends entirely on their own? If it is the latter, the author should more clearly detail their method for developing the terms, themes, and trends. When writing on the six alternative lenses, the author notes that the framework “emerges from the author’s sustained analytic engagement with sustainability governance across research, practitioner, and policymaking contexts over nearly three decades,” but that lacks detail. The author should say more about how specific texts and documents justify the selection/identification of the lenses/frames/themes. Otherwise, it risks sounding as if the author simply identified categories on their own, based on their own personal/subjective notions, and then applied them, blanket-wise, to discourse. This is all the more the case when the author reaches Section 4, the brief analytical section, in which the author applies the analytical framework to what is admittedly identified as a convenience sample, that “functions less as a stand-alone evidentiary contribution and more as a means of advancing the paper’s broader conceptual argument.”
Response 2:
I believe much of this comment repeats an earlier paragraph. So, please see my response to that paragraph. Regarding that sentence in Section 4, I rewrote it. Specifically, I removed the phrase “less as a stand-alone evidentiary contribution”, which removed the self-undermining tone and reframed the sample as analytically appropriate.
Comment 3:
Overall, this manuscript would benefit significantly from the addition of more illustrative examples of each of its grammars and lenses. The grammars and lenses are clearly defined, but the author should provide clear and directly quoted examples of each throughout the essay (not just in Section 4) to illustrate each and to support claims that they are recurrent or “especially salient” (in Section 2.1, for example, the author asserts that that the five themes of scalability are “especially salient” and “recurring evaluative criteria” but does not give examples to demonstrate that this is a the case; I urge them to please give/cite examples of each to justify the identification of these themes as “especially salient”—otherwise, the analytical framework and terminology presented is clear and tidy but not empirically evidenced in the manuscript itself).
Response 3:
Thanks for this helpful suggestion. In hindsight, the omission of such “examples” was glaring, so I am grateful for the opportunity to address it. In revision, I have incorporated additional direct quotes throughout the manuscript, not only in Section 4. These revisions include specific language from adaptation frameworks that illustrate expansion, replication, monitoring, vulnerability framing, and performance metrics.
Comment 4:
Secondly, and significantly, the perspective applied is Anglo-centric and entirely focused on Western/Global North discourses (and, yes, this includes the ostensibly global United Nations discourse and governance, which is still directly influenced by a Western and economically-driven model). The manuscript lacks cultural context for its claims about sustainability discourse and policy, but is apparently only engaging discourse and policy from Anglophonic and Western capitalist systems. And, in fact, sustainability governance through scale is entirely to be expected in such cultural contexts, as all other governance, including health and welfare, education, and artistic expression are also guided by economic frames of growth and scale/scalability—where, as the author writes, as “plans move toward implementation, accountability, and verification,” responsibility and policy are frequently articulated “through the grammar of scale—privileging metrics, replicability, and temporal boundedness over permanence, settlement, and obligation.” It’s not unexpected that scale would dominate discourse and governance in an American or Western capitalist societal context, but this may not be the case other global contexts. The author should be careful to explicitly identify the scope of their claims about discourse and lenses, recognizing that this manuscript does not engage discourses of governance from other geographic, cultural, or ideological contexts.
When reading, I wondered repeatedly whether these grammars would extend to other languages and language systems, and explicitly limiting the scope/context of the manuscript’s claims would help avoid these questions.
Response 4
Thank you for raising this point. The manuscript has been revised to clarify the geographic and institutional scope of its claims. The empirical analysis focuses on Anglophone and OECD-oriented adaptation planning frameworks, including U.S. federal, state, and UN-affiliated English-language governance documents. I have added explicit statements in Section 4.1 and the conclusion, noting that the argument does not claim cross-cultural universality. The manuscript now frames extension to non-Western or non-Anglophone contexts as an important direction for future research.
Comment 5
Beyond these two broader points, I also have some smaller questions/points for revision for the author (that I urge them to address), listed here:
In Section 5.2, engaging “Implications for Policymakers,” you urge policymakers to change their grammar in “monitoring frameworks, performance indicators, reporting cycles, and funding criteria.” However: I think it’s really quite possible that some (or, even, many or most) policymakers and grant writers are already very aware that grammars of scale are not accurately suited to their exigences but are still intentionally, explicitly electing such grammars of scale anyway, given that the powers of conservatism, extractivism, capital, deregulation, and wealth currently (and for some time now) hold the powers of governance and funding in much of the region you analyze. That is: it’s not that those working to promote sustainable policy favor or subconsciously default to these frames of scale, but, rather that those frames of scale are the only frames seen as legitimate by those in authority and, thus, the most effective for soliciting change (or, at the very least, not cutting off future discussion) in the current social and political climate. I urge the author to consider this when constructing their appeal to policymakers, practitioners, activists, and other sustainability-invested parties.
Response 5
This is a very astute observation. Thanks for raising the point. I have revised Section 5.2 to clarify that the dominance of scale-oriented accountability systems is not necessarily due to conceptual default or oversight. In many contemporary governance contexts, scalability may be strategically adopted because it is the only grammar recognized as institutionally legitimate. The revised text now acknowledges these structural conditions and reframes the policy implications accordingly, shifting the emphasis from individual choice to institutional viability and legitimacy constraints.
Comment 6:
Why does the author not more directly engage the work on environmental and sustainability discourse already developed in Communication Studes and Rhetoric? The author appears to be directly engaging ideas developed in canonical works like Kenneth Burke’s A Grammar of Motives and George Lakoff & Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By, so I was surprised to see that neither was cited. If the author is unfamiliar with this work, I urge them to read both texts, as they may inform this and future manuscripts.
Response 6
The revised manuscript now explicitly engages these canonical works in rhetoric and metaphor theory. While I was familiar with Lakoff and Johnson’s work, I was only aware of Burke secondhand. Thanks for the nudge to revisit the former and to explore the latter for the first time!
Comment 7:
I also urge the author to review, draw from, and engage relevant work in the journal Environmental Communication, so as to engage in direct dialogue with other thinkers asking similar questions about sustainability discourse, themes, and framing. One of the most respected and cited scholars in environmental rhetoric studies, Greg Dickinson, is actually affiliated with the author’s home institution; perhaps the author could meet with and/or consult Dr. Dickinson directly as they polish and develop their analytical framework
Response 7
I always welcome the opportunity to read material outside my disciplinary and subdisciplinary fields. Although I was given only 10 days to revise this manuscript, I devoted as much time as possible to reading material new to me (including, as noted earlier, Lakoff and Johnson and Burke). The manuscript has been revised to acknowledge environmental communication and the rhetorical studies of sustainability discourse, as the prior version was silent on these fields.
Comment 8
In Section 2.1, you assert, “Sustainability initiatives that expand, replicate, generate metrics, begin as pilots, and preserve an exit are widely recognized as legitimate and effective.” But this is a passive construction. Can you make it an active construction, identifying by whom the indicatives are “recognized as legitimate and effective?”
Response 8
Thank you for catching that. I have revised Section 2.1 to replace the passive construction with an active formulation that identifies institutional actors—such as funding agencies and oversight bodies—that treat scalable initiatives as legitimate and effective. This clarification strengthens the argument's institutional focus.
Comment 9
In Section 2.2, you assert, “Funding agencies, governments, and large organizations are accustomed to evaluating programs using comparable indicators and time-bound deliverables.” This sounds plausible, but, here again, it would help if you could give some specific examples of such agencies, governments, and large organizations to illustrate and evidence your point.
Response 9
I have revised Section 2.2 to include concrete examples drawn directly from the adaptation frameworks analyzed in the paper. The revised text now references the UNFCCC National Adaptation Plan Technical Guidelines, the U.S. EPA Climate Adaptation Plan, and the U.S. Department of State Climate Adaptation & Resilience Plan, each of which explicitly links adaptation efforts to standardized indicators, reporting cycles, and performance requirements. These additions clarify that the claim that scalability aligns with established administrative practices is grounded in specific institutional accountability systems rather than presented as a generalized governance claim.
Comment 10
This feedback/questioning is not meant to deter the author but, rather, to encourage them to refine the manuscript into its best possible form. I would be eager to read and review this work again with more explicitly reflexive/delineated cultural context and more illustrative examples for its methods and frames.
Response 10
Thank you for these thoughtful comments. Coming from slightly different disciplinary fields, I appreciate the opportunity to engage with material that deepens the analysis and strengthens the argument.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe core of the article is to compare the different logics of sustainable governance to "grammar". To be honest, frankly speaking, I'm not sure what practical significance this research has.
Can the number of Keywords be adjusted?
The explanations of the six grammars in this manuscript are rather abstract. It is suggested that each grammar be supplemented with one or two brief practical examples to help readers understand how they are manifested in specific situations.
The mention of these grammars is not mutually exclusive, but there has been no in-depth discussion of the potential conflicts or complementarities that they may bring about in practical usage.
The final suggestion is rather complicated; specific measures could be added to it.
It is suggested that more straightforward expressions be used at key points to enhance the dissemination power of the article.
Author Response
Comment 1
The core of the article is to compare the different logics of sustainable governance to "grammar". To be honest, frankly speaking, I'm not sure what practical significance this research has. Can the number of Keywords be adjusted? The explanations of the six grammars in this manuscript are rather abstract. It is suggested that each grammar be supplemented with one or two brief practical examples to help readers understand how they are manifested in specific situations. The mention of these grammars is not mutually exclusive, but there has been no in-depth discussion of the potential conflicts or complementarities that they may bring about in practical usage. The final suggestion is rather complicated; specific measures could be added to it. It is suggested that more straightforward expressions be used at key points to enhance the dissemination power of the article.
Response 1
Thank you for these insightful suggestions. In the revision, I clarified the practical importance of the “grammar” framework by explicitly linking it to accountability design, policy evaluation, and institutional resilience within planetary limits. I also reviewed and refined the keywords to better emphasize the article’s main analytic contributions. To address concerns about abstraction, I added brief, concrete examples from climate adaptation planning documents to show how the six grammars appear in specific institutional settings. While the grammars are not mutually exclusive, I now discuss their potential tensions and complementarities, especially how they emerge in framing but become more limited during implementation and reporting. The policy implications section has been clarified to distinguish conceptual advice from institutional feasibility, and key passages have been streamlined for clarity and accessibility without losing analytical precision. I appreciate the opportunity to enhance the manuscript in these ways.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authorsin section 4.1, the author is requested to clearly state the sampleing logic
specify the exclusion rationale,
I guess the expansion/replication/metrics/piloting/exit may overlap in practice, hence autthors are needed to strangthen the conceptual boundaries between these elements and show why each is necessary and distincet. for example are metrics always scale-enabling? is exit always implied by mobility?
I guess table 1 and 2 are instrumental, but the discussion and narrative should explain explicitly what each table demonstrates beyond summarizing each table.
The discussion section considered implications for practitioners/policymakers/scholars, I guess the author may provide 2–3 concrete examples of “accountability redesign” that would make attachment/settlement/sufficiency/inheritance/exposure/refusal institutionally legible, for example alternative KPIs, maintenance budgets, and refusal thresholds.
Author Response
Comment 1
In section 4.1, the author is requested to clearly state the sampleing logic
specify the exclusion rationale, I guess the expansion/replication/metrics/piloting/exit may overlap in practice, hence autthors are needed to strangthen the conceptual boundaries between these elements and show why each is necessary and distincet. for example are metrics always scale-enabling? is exit always implied by mobility? I guess table 1 and 2 are instrumental, but the discussion and narrative should explain explicitly what each table demonstrates beyond summarizing each table. The discussion section considered implications for practitioners/policymakers/scholars, I guess the author may provide 2–3 concrete examples of “accountability redesign” that would make attachment/settlement/sufficiency/inheritance/exposure/refusal institutionally legible, for example alternative KPIs, maintenance budgets, and refusal thresholds.
Response 1
Thank you for these helpful and constructive comments. Allow me to highlight four points. First, Section 4.1 now clearly states the sampling logic. The revised text specifies the inclusion criteria (institutional authoritativeness, explicit adaptation orientation under long-term constraints, and structured monitoring architecture) and clarifies that advocacy documents or plans without formal accountability structures were excluded. It also makes clear that the sample is selective and diagnostic rather than representative. Second, Section 2.1 has been revised to sharpen the conceptual distinctions among expansion, replication, metrics, piloting, and exit. Third, the narrative discussion now interprets Tables 1 and 2 more explicitly—particularly the patterned narrowing from plural grammars in framing sections to scale-dominant logics in implementation and accountability. Finally, the Discussion section now includes concrete examples of “accountability redesign,” including protected maintenance budgets, long-horizon stewardship clauses, and evaluation criteria that recognize managed retreat or cessation as legitimate outcomes.
