Changing Organizational Space: Green? Or Lean and Mean?

The recent dynamism in the design of workspace is frequently constructed by developers and managers as motivated by a desire to improve sustainability. These claims are reflected in the growing currency of 'greenspeak' in organizational discourses and policies at local, national and global levels, as well as a developing academic interest in organizational environmentalism. This article explores the extent to which the increase in an environmental rhetoric has been accompanied by a meaningful shift in organizational practices. Drawing on a new empirical study exploring the place of sustainability within workspace transformation, the study engages with Lefebvre and Foucault to argue that 'green' has frequently become bound up with 'lean' and 'mean' within organizational discourses and imaginations. This has important policy implications for organizations as well as broader theoretical implications for organizational environmental sociology.