Spotlight: Greenwashing
What is Greenwashing?
Merriman-Webster Dictionary defines greenwashing as:
the act or practice of making a product, policy, activity, etc. appear to be more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than it really is.
Business News Daily is more critical in its definition, pointing out how greenwashing is leveraged for marketing purposes, defining greenwashing as:
when a company purports to be environmentally conscious for marketing purposes but actually isn’t making any notable sustainability efforts.
Greenwashing is decidedly different from green marketing which involves a business advertising a product in a way that "is generally practical, honest, and transparent, and that the product or services meets these criteria:
- Manufactured in a sustainable fashion
- Free of toxic materials or ozone-depleting substances
- Recyclable or produced from recycled materials
- Made from renewable materials (such as bamboo)
- Not made of materials harvested from a protected area, or that negatively impact threatened or endangered species with their harvest
- Not manufactured with slave labor or by workers who are not fairly paid
- Does not use excessive packaging
- Designed to be repairable rather than disposable"
For more about greenwashing, read "What is Greenwashing?" by Carlyann Edwards from Business News Daily.
Guides to Detecting Greenwashing
Books
-
After Greenwashing: Symbolic Corporate Environmentalism and Society
by
Businesses promote their environmental awareness through green buildings, eco-labels, sustainability reports, industry pledges and clean technologies. When are these symbols wasteful corporate spin, and when do they signal authentic environmental improvements? Based on twenty years of research, three rich case studies, a strong theoretical model and a range of practical applications, this book provides the first systematic analysis of the drivers and consequences of symbolic corporate environmentalism. It addresses the indirect cost of companies' symbolic actions and develops a new concept of the 'social energy penalty' - the cost to society when powerful corporate actors limit the social conversation on environmental problems and their solutions. This thoughtful book develops a set of tools for researchers, regulators and managers to separate useful environmental information from empty corporate spin, and will appeal to researchers and students of corporate responsibility, corporate environmental strategy and sustainable business, as well as environmental practitioners.
Call Number: E-BookISBN: 9781139910569Publication Date: 2014 -
Beyond Greenwash: Explaining Credibility in Transnational Eco-labeling
by
From green frogs and blue angels to white bunnies, modern consumers are confronted by a growing array of colorful eco-labels on everything from coffee to computers. When eco-labels are credible, they can lead to dramatic change in environmental practices broadly and quickly by leveraging thepurchasing power of corporate clients (e.g., Walmart and McDonalds) to influence global supply chains. But the credibility of such labels is highly variable; and despite the existence of established practices for eco-labeling, many labels remain little more than superficial exercises in "greenwash."How can consumers separate greenwash from genuine attempts to address environmental challenges?Beyond Greenwash addresses this question by systematically investigating the credibility of transnational eco-labeling organizations across countries and commercial sectors. Using an innovative proxy measure for credibility that examines adherence to established best practices, Hamish van der Venproposes a novel theory of rigor and credibility in transnational eco-labeling that upends conventional wisdom. He argues that the credibility of an eco-label does not depend on who creates or manages it-whether a government, industry association, professional standard setter, or environmental NGO.Rather, it depends on which types of businesses use the label. More specifically, eco-labeling organizations that target bigger, consumer-facing retailers tend to create credible eco-labels out of a desire to insulate their clients from critical scrutiny and gain acceptance in new markets. Thistheory challenges the conventional wisdom that only governments or environmental NGOs can create meaningful environmental governance and suggests that who is being governed matters as much, if not more, than who is doing the governing.
Call Number: E-BookISBN: 9780190866006Publication Date: 2019-04-19 -
Greenwashing Culture
by
"Greenwashing Culture" examines the complicity of culture with our environmental crisis. Through its own carbon footprint, the promotion of image-friendly environmental credentials for celebrities, and the mutually beneficial engagement with big industry polluters, Toby Miller argues that culture has become an enabler of environmental criminals to win over local, national, and international communities. Topics include: the environmental liabilities involved in digital and print technologies used by cultural institutions and their consumers; Hollywood's 'green celebrities' and the immense ecological impact of their jet-setting lifestyles and filmmaking itself; high profile sponsorship deals between museums and oil and gas companies, such as BP's sponsorship of Tate Britain; radical environmental reform, via citizenship and public policy, illustrated by the actions of Greenpeace against Shell's sponsorship of Lego.
Call Number: E-BookISBN: 9781317333494Publication Date: 2017-08-03 -
The Shape of Green
by
Does going green change the face of design or only its content? The first book to outline principles for the aesthetics of sustainable design, "The Shape of Green" argues that beauty is inherent to sustainability, for how things look and feel is as important as how they're made. In addition to examining what makes something attractive or emotionally pleasing, Hosey connects these questions with practical design challenges. Can the shape of a car make it more aerodynamic and more attractive at the same time? Could buildings be constructed of porous materials that simultaneously clean the air and soothe the skin? Can cities become verdant, productive landscapes instead of wastelands of concrete? Drawing from a wealth of scientific research, Hosey demonstrates that form and image can enhance conservation, comfort, and community at every scale of design, from products to buildings to cities. Fully embracing the principles of ecology could revolutionize every aspect of design, in substance and in style. Aesthetic attraction isn't a superficial concern -- it's an environmental imperative. Beauty could save the planet.
Call Number: E-BookISBN: 9781610910316Publication Date: 2012-06-11
Articles
-
Detecting Greenwashing! The Influence of Product Colour and Product Price on Consumers' Detection Accuracy of Faked Bio-fashion by L. Ende, M.-A. Reinhard and L. Göritz While there exists recent research about greenwashing in the context of branding and product packaging as well as advertising, we investigated greenwashing detection depending on the cues colour and price of the product itself. We hypothesized: The more the product cues fit to the mental representation of the corresponding category-prototype of bio (or non-bio) products, the more likely consumers classify the product to that category, are confident with the classification-decision and actually get deceived. In two studies, female consumers were asked to classify actual bio and actual non-bio fashion products from online shops as bio or faked bio. The bio-typicality of the colour of the product (Studies 1 and 2) and the price-level of the product (Study 1) were systematically varied. According to our assumptions, the probability to classify a product as bio or non-bio was higher when these product cues fitted to the expected status of the product. Furthermore, consumers reached higher classification accuracy when the colour (and the price) of the product fitted the actual status of the product. Unexpectedly, effects were independent from consumers' varying ecological context experience. Concluding, consumers got "successfully" greenwashed by just a bio-typical product colour and a high price what highlights the importance of stronger political regulations in the B2C sales market.
-
The Impact of Perceived Greenwashing on Customer Satisfaction and the Contingent Role of Capability Reputation by Ioannis Ioannou, George Kassinis and Giorgos Papagiannakis We investigate the impact of perceived greenwashing on customer satisfaction. Unlike prior research that largely examines customer perceptions associated with irresponsible behavior, we focus on cases where firms overcommit and/or do not deliver on promised socially responsible actions. We theorize that this type of greenwashing is associated with lower customer satisfaction because customers perceive greenwashing through the lens of corporate hypocrisy. Using data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) for U.S. companies during the period 2008–2016, we document a negative link between perceived greenwashing related to green product innovation (GPI) and the ACSI index. We demonstrate that this effect is primarily triggered by corporate policies exceeding the corresponding implementation actions and not by lower levels of implementation. We also show that a firm's capability reputation mitigates the negative effect of greenwashing on customer satisfaction. Moreover, we conduct an experiment and provide evidence confirming that GPI greenwashing is in fact perceived by customers as corporate hypocrisy.