Greenwashing: the Unsustainable Misinformation that Profits on Trust
Awareness among consumers about environmental issues has been gradually increasing in recent years. In a study conducted in 2021, scholars found that up to 85% of consumers have been trying to morph their spending and purchasing habits into more sustainable ones. As a result, they are oftentimes willing to pay more for “greener” products, supporting products that were produced with means that are supposedly less harmful to the environment in comparison to their alternatives.
Naturally, businesses see the potential and opportunity for sustainability in marketing. “Net-Zero Carbon Emission,” “sustainably sourced,” and “made from recycled materials”: one can easily find terms like these in an advertisement.
By simply putting environmental-friendly buzzwords into campaigns and advertisements, charging the same product with a higher price than competitors is often now justifiable and welcomed by consumers. Companies are increasingly engaging in “greenwashing”, which can include the practice of spreading false claims, making hollow promises, and misleading consumers; furthermore, it can be challenging for consumers to see the difference between a company that “greenwashes” and ones who actually take sustainability and environmental ethics seriously.
Being “Green” is Easy
Because, for a long time, terms such as “sustainable” could be used without any regulation, being green has been easy for companies in recent years. The main objective behind greenwashing is simple: to make consumers feel that they are part of an ecological initiative by spending their money on a product. As early as 2017, H&M had already launched its Conscious initiative with the campaign video Bring It On, encouraging consumers to bring used H&M clothes back to the store. The more a consumer brings back to the store, the more opportunities for them to spend more money purchasing new garments, and the cycle continues.
But how can a company attract customers in the first place when they have no green initiatives to offer in the first place? One easy approach is to make promises that the company will reach certain goals in the near future. If the company promises that it can become “green” in one way or another in the next decade, consumers may (the thinking goes) overlook the flaws in its present business model.
Another method of false sustainability is creating a false label or aesthetic. As seen in the H&M video and advertisements of the same nature from other companies, greenwashing campaigns often link the company with visuals associating itself with nature and presenting itself to be environmentally-friendly through such associations.
Without making much effort, companies as such can blend in with others that are truly practicing environmental sustainability, profiting under the disguise of being ethical or environmental-friendly.
As laid out in H&M Group’s Sustainability Disclosure 2022, even though the campaign started in 2017, only 2% of all materials used by the company during production were materials that were recycled in 2019. It took two years for H&M to finally make the 2% progress that it promised in the original campaign video. As of last year (2022), recycled materials only made up 23% of all the materials used. Even though this may seem like progress, however incremental, with the company claiming and praising the huge amount of materials being recycled in number, one can only imagine, if all such quantities of materials only make up a quarter of all the materials consumed, how many products the fast fashion company is making in merely a year.
Greenwashing at a Cost
It is not only fast fashion brands that are engaging in greenwashing. Airline companies, fossil fuel companies, and even schools and educational institutions all seek to present themselves as sustainable. Nevertheless, if a company puts out misinformation in its advertisements, it is only a matter of time before the general public finds out.
A study published in 2022 found that the utilization of greenwashing tactics in advertising can harm the brand’s reputation and evaluations and plant shame into consumers’ minds. Greenwashing advertising is hard to spot at first glance, and oftentimes consumers only find out about false claims after they have already supported a company. Such tactics, once used, will make the consumers doubt the progress that the company makes. Even when a company’s progress is real and evidenced and for a good cause, consumers, if lied to before by the same company, might find it hard to look at such progress without being skeptical: are these truly steps that the company has taken, or are they just once again false promises or results being counted as progress because the measurements and standards as been conveniently adjusted for it to look like that the company is making progress?
Moreover, how can consumers predict which promises that the companies put out is false? What if it is another business that we’ve already supported? Not only will greenwashing harm people’s trust in the company in discussion; moreover, it will create doubt and hesitation in people before they make the decision to support another company with a similar cause, even when such a company does not greenwash its business practices.
If everyone claims that they are sustainable, while in reality, they were only continuing their old business practices, does the word “sustainability” even mean a difference? How do people know whom to trust?
The Road to Prevention
Attempts at preventing greenwashing have been made by authorities. In 2012, the Federal Trade Commission put out its Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims (“Green Guides”) and has been seeking public comments to update such guidelines. The European Union has also set out Anti-Greenwashing Rules with the expectation of preventing companies from continuing the spread of misinformation.
The foundations of such governmental prevention, however, often lie in the definition of specific terminologies. For example, it is only when a product that claims to be “made from recycled materials” and fails to meet the standard in the EU guidelines that the company can face fines and actions. A company can simply bypass such rules by simply marketing the same product and message with different wordings that are not outlined in the guideline. Preventions, though they have been put in place and are effective to an extent, are not as helpful as people might think in preventing greenwashing from happening, and the responsibility of detecting misinformation often falls back onto consumers.
Fundamentally, we want to be green rather than buy green. It is not only the truth that we fight for but also the future of our environment.
Our battle is not about merely debunking lies. It is about uprooting them once and for all, confronting the powerhouse from which such lies germinate, the idea and prevalence of consumerism: everything is commercialized (even the idea that we should not commercialize everything). It is time for companies to look at sustainability through a lens of ethics rather than profiting and see it to be more than just a line of slogans. Starting today may be too late in comparison with starting yesterday, but it is always better than starting tomorrow.
References:
Federal Trade Commission (2020) Green Guides, Federal Trade Commission. Available at: https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/green-guides (Accessed: April 30, 2023).
Federal Trade Commission (2022) Environmental claims: Summary of the green guides, Federal Trade Commission. Available at: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/environmental-claims-summary-green-guides (Accessed: April 30, 2023).
Federal Trade Commission (2023) FTC seeks public comment on potential updates to its ‘green guides’ for the use of environmental marketing claims, Federal Trade Commission. Available at: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/12/ftc-seeks-public-comment-potential-updates-its-green-guides-use-environmental-marketing-claims (Accessed: April 30, 2023).
H&M Conscious: Bring it on (2017) YouTube. H&M. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i4JSzB8VlU (Accessed: April 30, 2023).
H&M Group Sustainability Disclosure 2022 (2023) H&M Group. H&M Group. Available at: https://hmgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/HM-Group-Sustainability-Disclosure-2022.pdf (Accessed: April 30, 2023).
Naderer, B., Schmuck, D. and Matthes, J. (2017) 2.3 greenwashing: Disinformation through green advertising, De Gruyter. De Gruyter Saur. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110416794-007 (Accessed: April 30, 2023).
Neureiter, A. and Matthes, J. (2022) “Comparing the effects of greenwashing claims in environmental airline advertising: Perceived greenwashing, Brand Evaluation, and Flight Shame,” International Journal of Advertising, 42(3), pp. 461–487. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2022.2076510.
Recent study reveals more than a third of global consumers are willing to pay more for sustainability as demand grows for environmentally-friendly alternatives (2021) Business Wire. Available at: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211014005090/en/Recent-Study-Reveals-More-Than-a-Third-of-Global-Consumers-Are-Willing-to-Pay-More-for-Sustainability-as-Demand-Grows-for-Environmentally-Friendly-Alternatives (Accessed: April 30, 2023).
Woollacott, E. (2023) New EU greenwashing rules fail to prevent misinformation, say campaign groups, Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2023/03/23/new-eu-greenwashing-rules-fail-to-prevent-misinformation-say-campaign-groups/?sh=1ef3df1926a4 (Accessed: April 30, 2023).
