What Is Greenwashing? Greenwashing is a form of marketing or advertising wherein businesses or organizations attempt to capitalize on the growing demand for more environmentally sound products, practices, or services without actually making any significant changes to their operations or product lines. It often involves providing misleading or false information about the company’s involvement with sustainability or natural resources management.

Greenwashing is a concerning practice for consumers and sustainability professionals. While companies have incentives to create greenwashing advertising campaigns, the presence of such campaigns can make it difficult for consumers to make informed purchasing decisions. Seeking information from third-party organisations and learning to recognise greenwashing can help conscious consumers avoid falling into the trap of greenwashing.

Greenwashing involves several presentations of false or misleading information, including featuring environmentally friendly imagery in advertisements and amplifying the “green” aspects of a product line or company in press releases or actual products. For a company to engage in greenwashing, they must make false claims about the environmental impact of their activities, services, or products or the environmental record of their businesses or industry.

Criticism of Greenwashing Critics and activists often accuse businesses of greenwashing as a way to further monetize the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment movement. ESG investing focuses not only on the financial performance of a company but also on the sustainability and social and governance issues associated with a company or industry. With greenwashing, asset managers may be using a company’s ESG-related activities as a marketing tool to draw in larger investments and to generate increased returns without sufficiently addressing the underlying sustainability issues.

The prevalence of false and misleading green claims has caused the rise of a critical discussion about the legitimacy of greenwashing. Some activists and consumers contest that greenwashing distracts from real action and deceives the public about the real impacts of a company’s actions on the environment.

What to Look out for When Identifying Greenwashing Identifying greenwashing can be difficult, as companies justify their environmental claims and practices in news articles, press releases, and product labels. As a rule of thumb, if a green promotion or advertisement seems too good to be true, it probably is. Consumers should remain cautious and check the facts.

For example, a common form of greenwashing involves making assumptions about a product and its impacts, without scientific evidence. Companies will often state that a product is “eco-friendly” even when the product hasn’t gone through an independent accreditation process.

When trying to determine the legitimacy of a green product, consumers should look for third-party certifications or recognized green labels that can verify that a company is making factual environmental claims. Researching a product or business online through reputable and independent sources can also help uncover false claims.



In conclusion, greenwashing remains a pervasive issue as businesses attempt to capitalize on the growing demand for more sustainable products, services, and practices. Consumers should be diligent and verify any claims a company makes before supporting a business. Attention to detail and knowledge of the facts are the best means of rooting out greenwashing.