Sustentabilidade e servidão voluntária: uma análise do questionário do ISE/B3

Abstract

Organizational sustainability has consolidated, over the past decades, as one of the central axes of the debate on sustainable development, particularly in light of intensifying social inequalities, the environmental crisis, and the growing pressure for companies to assume ethical, social, and environmental responsibilities. It seeks to balance the interactions among economic, social, and environmental systems and, within the organizational context, translates into policies and practices capable of maximizing positive impacts, reducing negative ones, and meeting ethical, legal, commercial, and social expectations. In this scenario, the Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE/B3) gains relevance as a seal of recognition for publicly traded companies committed to such practices. Thus, this study proposes to analyze the existence of traces of voluntary servitude in the 2025 ISE/B3 questionnaires, developing a critical perspective by bringing organizational sustainability closer to the concept of voluntary servitude formulated by La Boétie. Voluntary servitude may occur when individuals accept domination through habit, spectacles, and hierarchy, suggesting that even in environments considered sustainable, subtle mechanisms of submission, tutelage, and symbolic dependence may persist. Accordingly, the research adopts a qualitative, descriptive approach grounded in content analysis. Primary data were collected through non-participant observation on the official ISE/B3 website, where the 28 questionnaires required for companies to participate in the index are available. The analysis consisted of assigning categories to a set of texts in a qualitative-interpretative act, enabling the identification of patterns of naturalized submission. The results reveal that such traces contrast with the principles of organizational sustainability, which presuppose autonomy, participation, and co-responsibility. This highlights a structural tension between the emancipatory purpose of sustainable development and evaluative practices that, even without explicit intention, may reinforce subtle structures of domination. The study therefore contributes to broadening the debate on what it means to be a truly sustainable organization and underscores the need to revise instruments such as the ISE/B3, so as to prevent mechanisms of voluntary servitude from remaining invisible under the discourse of sustainability.