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We elaborate an interpretation of the critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough illustrating this in focusing upon struggles over takeovers legislation in New Zealand. We indicate the more general applicability of such analysis in the area of financial and accounting regulation.

A number of contributors to the literature have - apparently in the name ofthe green - portrayed green accounting and auditing as problematic. The further mobilisation and prescription of green accounting and auditing are, for these contributors, overly centralist, interventionist and narrowly technicist. Yet, if the potential environmental threat is significant, and if a more voluntarist approach to environmental reporting responds marginally to that threat, at best, the sensitivity and cautions of those contributors who draw upon trends in contemporary theorising may constitute a misplaced emphasis. Indeed, attention may even ironically be displaced from substantive concerns.