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Companies increasingly employ environmental compensation claims in their advertisements. This practice, however, has been criticized as being a form of greenwashing. In two studies, we examined associations between the exposure to abstract and concrete compensation claims, consumers' perceived greenwashing, environmental boycotting and buycotting intentions, and brand evaluation as well as purchase intentions. Further, we investigated the moderating role of consumers' environmental knowledge. In Study 1, findings from a two-wave panel survey (NW2 = 511) indicated that exposure to abstract compensation claims was positively related to perceived greenwashing, whereas exposure to concrete compensation claims was not. Environmental knowledge did not influence perceptions of greenwashing in either claim. Using experimental data, Study 2 (N = 423) showed that concrete compensation claims can also lead to perceived greenwashing but to a lesser extent than abstract ones. Furthermore, environmental knowledge helped consumers detect greenwashing in both claims. In both studies, perceived greenwashing positively predicted consumers' intention to join environmental boycotts but not buycotts. In addition, Study 2 showed that perceived greenwashing was negatively associated with purchase intentions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green development is closely tied to the allocation of economic and financial instruments for resource management. Green finance plays an important role in limiting excessive pollution across various industries. To assess the impact of China’s green finance pilot program (GFPP) on the carbon emissions of manufacturing firms, we treat the implementation of the GFPP as a quasi-natural experiment and find an important evidence that the GFPP reduces firms’ carbon emissions in pilot zones. Moreover, the GFPP promotes firms’ green innovation by easing financial constraints. The policy also enhances public oversight, thereby further reducing firms’ carbon emissions. However, firms’ greenwashing behavior is predicted to weaken the emission-reduction effect of the GFPP. This work provides a basis for carbon emission reductions through green finance in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study critically explores the phenomenon of corporate greenwashing within global supply chains, aiming to dissect the ethical dilemmas corporations face when their environmental claims do not match their practices. It seeks to understand how corporations navigate the tension between appearing environmentally responsible and implementing sustainable practices. Design/Methodology/Approach: Employing a qualitative analysis framework, the study analyses notable instances of corporate greenwashing case studies. It applies ethical theories such as Utilitarianism, Deontological Ethics, Corporate Responsibility (CR), Global Economic Inequality, stakeholder and shareholder theories, short-term gains versus long-term sustainability, Ethical sourcing, and Economic Realism to evaluate the decisions and behaviours of corporations. This approach allows for a comprehensive examination of greenwashing practices' motives, strategies, and outcomes. Findings: The research uncovers that greenwashing is often a result of the complex interplay between market pressures for environmental responsibility and the challenges of genuinely implementing sustainable practices. Corporations frequently use greenwashing to meet consumer expectations without substantially changing their operations. Research Limitations/Implications: The study acknowledges limitations, primarily due to the selection of case studies and the subjective interpretation of ethical theories. Future research could expand the range of case studies and explore additional ethical frameworks for a more nuanced understanding of greenwashing. Practical Implications: The findings highlight the need for stricter regulatory frameworks and transparent reporting standards to discourage greenwashing. It suggests that corporations adopt a more integrated approach to sustainability, aligning their environmental claims with actual practices. Social Implications: By shedding light on the discrepancy between corporate environmental claims and actions, the study calls for greater corporate accountability. It emphasises the role of informed consumer advocacy in demanding transparency and genuine sustainability efforts from corporations. Originality/Value: This paper contributes to the business ethics literature by providing a detailed analysis of greenwashing within global supply chains through ethical theories. It offers a novel perspective on the ethical considerations involved in corporate environmental claims, enhancing our understanding of corporate sustainability challenges. Plain Language Summary: This research analyses companies that make themselves seem more environmentally friendly than they are – a practice known as greenwashing. By examining real-life examples and using ethical principles, the study reveals why companies do this and how it can mislead consumers. It suggests that to stop greenwashing, there should be stricter rules and more transparent reporting about companies' environmental actions. The research also encourages people to demand truthfulness from companies about their environmental efforts, highlighting the importance of genuine sustainability over mere appearances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments and corporate actors around the world are setting ambitious targets for mitigating climate change and halting and reversing the destruction of nature. The public – individuals, communities, and corporate and non-government organisations – expect these commitments to be achieved, so corporate claims about climate and nature are, increasingly, being closely scrutinised. Representations and commitments about climate or environmental credentials that are false, misleading, or unsubstantiated have come to be known as ‘greenwashing’. Greenwashing can undermine the integrity of initiatives to achieve climate and sustainability targets, and the credibility of both corporate perpetrators and the regulatory framework itself. In this paper, we examine the Australian legal framework and reforms that are currently underway, along with key developments overseas. We propose a series of legal principles that, together, can help to promote a ‘best-practice’ approach to greenwashing, as governments, corporations, and broader civil society respond to the twin crises of climate change and environmental loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the drivers of green growth is important for designing policies to support sustainability goals. This article reports the findings of a cross-country empirical analysis of the role of innovation, fintech and financial transparency in promoting green finance using regression analysis based on a general-to-specific approach. Results show that green finance is significantly and negatively associated with fintech and financial transparency and positively associated with innovation. These results suggest that fintech may be diverting resources away from green finance, whereas greenwashing may undermine the effectiveness of green finance strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the environmental and socioeconomic dimensions of domestic cycling tourism in Slovenia, focusing on "double pollution" and "greenhushing" practices. The aim is to evaluate the sustainability of cycling tourism by examining its indirect environmental impacts, particularly emissions from ancillary travel behaviours such as car usage to reach cycling destinations. Utilizing data from 2011 to 2021, this research employs factor analyses using the principal component analysis (PCA) extraction method and vector autoregression (VAR) modelling to explore relationships between key socioeconomic, environmental, and tourism-related variables. This study identifies three common factors influencing cycling tourism: (1) socioeconomic and urban dynamics, (2) tourism-driven environmental factors, and (3) climatic sustainability challenges. Results highlight that cycling tourism contributes to emissions due to associated car travel, counteracting its eco-friendly image. Findings reveal that favourable economic conditions and urbanisation drive tourism demand, while increased tourist arrivals correlate with higher emissions. This study also uncovers greenhushing, where stakeholders underreport the environmental costs of cycling tourism, leading to mistaken perceptions of its sustainability. This study concludes that, while domestic cycling tourism supports economic growth and health, its environmental benefits are compromised by ancillary emissions. Transparent environmental reporting, enhanced public transport, and local bike rental systems are recommended to mitigate these challenges and align cycling tourism with Slovenia's sustainability goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem definition: A growing number of firms are encouraging consumers to participate in "bring-your-own-container" (BYOC) behavior in which consumers bring their own reusable packaging to purchase and consume products, thus reducing single-use packaging waste. In this paper, we study the environmental implications of a firm's BYOC implementation when considering its disposable packaging choice and communication strategy. Methodology/results: We build a stylized model to study a firm's joint decisions on BYOC, disposable packaging choice, and communication and their implications on the environment. Our main results follow. First, allowing BYOC reduces the firm's incentive to make fraudulent green claims about its disposable product packaging; however, BYOC implementation may harm the overall environment while improving the firm's profit, thereby creating a new form of greenwashing. Second, the adoption of third-party certification for green disposable packaging is an effective remedy to mitigate the negative environmental impact of BYOC. In addition, the environmental implications of adopting third-party certification (either voluntarily or because of government mandates) depend on the relationship between the environmental qualities of green disposable packaging and reusable packaging. Whereas it always benefits the environment when the firm's green disposable packaging has better environmental performance, adopting certification may negatively impact the environment if consumers' reusable packaging is greener. Furthermore, we find numerically that offering a price discount for BYOC may encourage the firm to adopt certification because of increased profitability, thereby leading to the aforementioned environmental implications. Managerial implications: We offer operational insights on how firms should make joint decisions on BYOC, disposable packaging choice, and communication. We also generate insights on how governments should regulate firms' green claims when firms start to allow BYOC. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2021.0605. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Despite the ongoing scholarly interest in greenwashing, it is not well known the impact of multiple institutional pressures on greenwashing in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Following the institutional logics perspective, this study investigates how three distinct logics – commercial, public, and social welfare – drive greenwashing and whether organizational capability for blending diverse CSR expectations reverses this link. Design/methodology/approach: The current study conceptualized and tested an original model on how three institutional logics influence greenwashing in CSR, with the mediation effect of hybridization capability as a response to logic plurality. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was performed on a survey data, which was collected from 150 middle managers in Turkey. Findings: The results show that while commercial logic has no direct or indirect impact on greenwashing, public and social welfare logics drive greenwashing in CSR. However, these effects are reversed when the CSR hybridization capability increases. Practical implications: This study contributes to the understanding of what predicts CSR greenwashing by integrating a comprehensive theoretical framework involving multiple institutional logics, conflicting stakeholder demands, and organizational hybridity. Originality/value: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that theoretically and empirically analyzed how the exposure of multiple external pressures affects the CSR greenwashing and how it can be reversed by CSR hybridization capability. This capability mitigates the threats and challenges of multiple logics and turns them into an opportunity to gain legitimacy in the eyes of stakeholders by preventing greenwashing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumers' increasing awareness of sustainability is reshaping consumption patterns, prompting fashion companies to adopt environmentally friendly initiatives. Certain fashion companies opt for brand extensions, whereas others create entirely new brand lines. Some companies even turn to greenwashing, conveying unsubstantiated claims about the eco-friendliness of their products. This study explored the combined influence of brand strategy (brand extension versus new brand name) and the presence/absence of greenwashing claims on a fictitious fashion brand company's website on consumers' purchase intentions. The results of our 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment show a significant interaction effect, highlighting that greenwashing significantly and adversely influences purchase intentions when fashion companies choose to use a new brand name for their innovative sustainable fashion clothing line. This study contributes valuable insights into consumer responses to different brand strategies and greenwashing in the pursuit of sustainable fashion choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of green bond issuance on companies' environmental social and governance (ESG) performances and greenwashing behavior of a sample of Chinese‐listed firms. We find that the issuance of green bonds significantly bolsters corporate ESG performance through the financing and signaling mechanisms. The moderating effect of policy uncertainty proves to have a mutually reinforcing effect on the impact of green bonds on ESG performance. By signaling the commitment to green and low‐carbon transformation, the issuance of green bonds offsets the negative effects of policy uncertainty on firm's ESG performance. Extended analysis on greenwashing discerns no notable differences among firms with different polluting conditions and politically connected levels. The issuance primarily improves environmental (E) and social (S) dimensions, with negligible influence on the governance (G) aspect of ESG. Our findings suggest that a potential propensity of greenwashing in China's green bond market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, there has been a surge of criticism against corporate social responsibility (CSR) decoupling due to its detrimental implications for both business and society. Thus, reducing this disconnect and fostering the consistency between firms' talk and walk has become an urgent priority. We employ a fixed‐effects model to examine the impact of public attention on CSR decoupling using 5633 annual observations from Chinese A‐share listed firms spanning 2011–2020. Our results show that firms subjected to heightened public attention tend to engage less in CSR decoupling. Further dividing into "greenwashing" and "brownwashing" types, we discover that public attention significantly curbs the occurrence of "greenwashing" decoupling. Channel tests indicate that public attention effectively inhabits CSR decoupling through information and supervision channels. We also document that a lower level of CSR decoupling for firms with intensive public attention results in lower reputational crisis and superior financial performance, highlighting the benefits of aligning CSR talk with CSR walk. These findings provide evidence supporting the imperative role of public oversight in curbing corporate misconduct and contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate on CSR decoupling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate how internal and external monitoring systems can help combat greenwashing. We propose a novel, incident‐based measure to investigate the greenwashing behavior of 1218 large and mid‐cap companies across different industries between 2008 and 2020. These companies are constituents of the MSCI World Index, covering 23 developed market economies. We consider a company to be engaged in greenwashing if it improves its environmental ESG subscore while simultaneously being responsible for severe environmental damage. According to our greenwashing indicator, about 7% of the companies were involved in greenwashing at least once during the 13‐year sample period. The proportion of greenwashing companies is highest in the energy, utilities, and materials industries. We find evidence that both internal and external monitoring mechanisms can be effective in deterring companies from adopting greenwashing strategies. Firms with more independent board members, attracting more attention from the investors, and headquartered in countries where the population is more environmentally aware are significantly less likely to engage in greenwashing. The awareness of the population is a key factor especially in the energy, utility, and material sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A textual analysis of corporate‐social responsibility (CSR) reports reveals that companies engaged in environmental violations report differently from firms with a clean record. The violators issue longer, more positive and more frequent reports to relay environmental content that is more copious but less readable. The violator firms appear to modify their reporting practices right after committing a violation. The findings suggest that culpable firms exploit the current unregulated–unaudited state of CSR reporting as a means of greenwashing and call for institutional change. Our results are robust to a number of industry‐firm characteristics, including board composition, ownership dispersion and international presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influencing factors of corporate greenwashing have consistently captivated scholarly attention. Drawing from Upper Echelons Theory and Strategic Recognition Theory, this study proposes that the green cognition of top management plays a critical role in shaping greenwashing practices. Furthermore, it is argued that this relationship may be moderated by factors such as political connections and the stringency of environmental regulations. To clarify these issues, this study utilizes a panel model with samples of Chinese listed firms that contain fundamental data and variables from 2012 to 2020. The results show that: 1) TMT environmental cognition restrain greenwashing behavior significantly by promoting genuine environmental efforts. 2) The inhibitory effect of TMT environmental cognition on greenwashing behavior is more pronounced in firms without political connections than those with political connections. 3) TMT environmental cognition has a significantly positive impact on environmental disclosure scores for private owned or political connection firms, except for state-owned or no political connection firms. 4) The level of political connection of firms and the intensity of environmental regulations have respectively strengthened or weakened the link between TMT environmental cognition and greenwashing behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to improve the understanding of corporate governance and environmental reporting literature by analyzing the impact of board gender diversity (BGD) on environmental performance, environmental disclosure, and greenwashing behavior. The panel regression estimation technique with fixed effects was applied to Chinese firm data. As a result, it was found that more women who served on corporate boards enhanced the company's environmental performance and disclosures while limiting greenwashing behavior. The result indicated that women in top management play a constructive role in establishing firms' active environmental initiatives. Furthermore, this relationship was nonlinear and exponentially increased when women's representation reached the threshold of 33.5% representation on board or higher. Based on the findings, no internal bias was found even after other governance and firm‐level control factors and probable endogenies were considered and variable biases were omitted. Notably, the results present important implications for regulators and policymakers by highlighting the influential role of BGD in promoting environmentally responsible practices and reducing greenwashing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preventing firms from engaging in greenwashing is a topic of significant theoretical and practical interest. This study examines the impact of penalties for environmental violations (PEVs) on mitigating greenwashing using a dataset of firms listed on China's A‐share market operating in heavily polluting industries from 2014 to 2020. We also examine how firm‐level characteristics moderate the relationship between PEVs and greenwashing. Our results demonstrate that PEVs can deter firms from engaging in greenwashing and that this negative effect is more pronounced for firms with greater financial slack, effective internal controls and political connections. Additional analysis indicates that PEVs have a negative effect on greenwashing for firms in the growth and mature stages but not for firms in the 'shake‐out' stage, and that there is a deterrence effect. Our findings have important implications for mitigating greenwashing behaviours through collaboration between governments and firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green demarketing is defined as a marketing technique that promotes a brand as environmentally friendly and health conscious by moderately lowering product consumption. Even though the influence of demarketing techniques have previously been explored, how personal characteristics influence customers' green behavioral intentions under the effects of green demarketing remains unknown. This study explored whether the effectiveness of a demarketing technique varies based on customers' skepticism (high vs. low), gender (male vs. female), age (young vs. old), and income level (high vs. low). Therefore, four 2 × 2 between subject designs were used, and the median split method was adopted to determine participants' level of green skepticism and age. The results confirmed significant relationships for green skepticism, age, and income level in response to message type. The study also identified implications for effective marketing communications regarding green marketing and demarketing strategies in the foodservice industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodynamic agriculture is akin to organic farming, but with some twists. It involves complex, multi-step, and seasonally appropriate techniques, which together work to ‘regenerate’ the agrarian environment. While biodynamic agriculture is predominately practiced in the Global North and associated with the teachings of the German Anthroposophical thinker Rudolf Steiner, Demeter (biodynamic) certification came to Indian tea plantations in the 1990s along with other third-party certification programs (e.g. fair trade). Biodynamic narratives of ‘regeneration’ on tea plantations in Darjeeling as I argue in this article, are green washing, at best. Biodynamic production and its attendant performances are a means of regenerating a fundamentally extractive industry for consumers desirous of redemptive stories about the ecologies that bring their comestibles into being. Biodynamic practice and marketing on plantations highlights, in the framing of this special issue, a kind of ‘plant intimacy’. But this ‘plant intimacy’ is a fetishized and romanticized representation of plantation work that occludes history, forms of violence and difference and political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the impact of "greenwashing" on the green purchase intentions of Egyptian consumers. The research aims to analyze how greenwashing practices affect purchase intentions by studying the role of love and loyalty to brand image and consumer confusion. The results showed that greenwashing negatively affects purchase intentions, highlighting the need for companies to cease these practices to ensure that consumers are accurately informed about the environmental aspects of products. The study also emphasizes the importance of building trust in green brands to enhance purchase intentions. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: The aim of the article is to present the issue of greenwashing, the premises for its application, its expressions in the activities of enterprises and its main drivers. Design/methodology/approach: The article uses a literature review and desk-research analysis concerning the analysis of legislative documents and data obtained from Reports including: The World of Organic Agriculture, European Securities and Markets Authority. Findings: The article explains the multidimensional nature of greenwashing and indicates that the opportunistic attitudes of the business world are its main cause. Research limitations/implications: Currently, efforts are made to introduce specific legal solutions, including those concerning the implementation of the ESG standard, in order to curb the "green lie" phenomenon. Practical implications: The introduction of non-financial reporting obligations, including those concerning the impact of enterprises on the environment, will allow various stakeholder groups to evaluate the actual pro-environmental activities declared by enterprises, and thus will contribute to reducing greenwashing. Social implications: The presented legislative solutions, primarily in Poland and the European Union (required disclosures) are the basis for a real assessment of the impact of the business world on the natural environment. As a result, control bodies, investors, customers and other stakeholders can compare companies, not only on the basis of their financial profitability, but also specific actions aimed at reducing the negative impact on the environment. Originality/value: Highlighting the importance of compliance of companies with ESG standards, including those related to their impact on the natural environment, in order to curb the phenomenon of greenwashing is the value of the article. Non-financial reporting on the impact of business on the environment according to the adopted criteria provides opportunities for transparency, reliable assessment and increased trust in economic entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]