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Abstract: This paper examines the association between a firm’s visual representation of its sustainability achievements (relative to its industry peers) or excess (sustainability) visualization and its inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI). Drawing on impression management research and interviews with sustainability raters, we theorize that the negative association between excess visualization and DJSI inclusion may reflect two potential mechanisms: reactance to suspected greenwashing and greater information-processing demands. We apply machine-learning image-identification methods to 430,697 images from 5,441 reports published by 2,570 firms between 2018 and 2020. In regression analyses, we compare 684 sustainability-comparable firm-year observations slightly below and above the DJSI inclusion threshold. We find evidence that images related to nature, biodiversity, and human diversity are associated with a lower likelihood of DJSI inclusion, although efforts to improve a firm’s communication credibility reduce this negative association. This paper contributes to impression management research, methods for analyzing visual content, and the influence of visualization on strategic outcomes.

Keywords: Dow Jones Sustainability World Indexvisualization; impression management; image recognition; machine-learning algorithms; sustainability

JEL-codes: C55; G24; M14; Q56

111 pages, October 14, 2026

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