GREENWASHING – WHAT IS IT, HOW TO IDENTIFY IT AND WHY IS IT A PROBLEM?

Greenwashing is the deceptive and misleading marketing strategy that a company uses in order to manipulate customers into believing that they are more environmentally friendly than they actually are. Companies, organizations, institutions and businesses will make false claims to their customers or investors about their sustainability practices using vague language to paint a picture of being environmentally responsible without having the evidence to back up their claims.

Companies will use greenwashing to appeal to customers, creating a false sense of trust in the company’s ethics and manipulating their audience to buy their products or use their services. Greenwashing is the opposite of being transparent with your audience – it is a detrimental marketing strategy wrapped in eco-friendly words and green imagery.

In this post, we will highlight the red flags to look out for when questioning whether a company is greenwashing or being transparent about their ethics. We will also share a deeper insight into why greenwashing is detrimental to the environment. Examples of companies who are guilty of this. And what we as consumers can do to call out these companies.

HOW TO IDENTIFY GREENWASHING?

When a company has intentionally used greenwashing as a marketing tactic, it can be challenging as a customer to differentiate between what is true and what is not. I feel like this issue is so prevalent in the fashion industry. Because the more I research, the more I see how many loop holes are in the system for companies to ignore their environmental responsibilities and regulations.

Companies are supposed to report ESG claims. Which are meant to be accurate reports on the Environmental, Social and Governance aspects of a business.

In my research, I have learned that these reports are done either voluntarily or they are mandatory. Which is the exact issue with regards to why companies get away with greenwashing. Managers and reporters responsible for recording this information are not regularly checked for accurate representation of this data. This allows companies to get away with false statements about their environmental impact.

To fully understand the concept of greenwashing, let’s break down the Why, the How and the Red Flags.

WHY COMPANIES GREENWASH:

• Conscious consumerism has risen over the years. Customers are more demanding of sustainable practices. Companies cannot keep up with implementing the changes to become more environmentally friendly.
• Companies set environmental targets for each year that they cannot achieve. They promise their customers a greener future that is not reachable within the given time-frame (or ever).
• These days, customers are willing to pay more for greener products. Companies can misrepresent how environmentally friendly they are in order to charge more for their product or service.
• Companies know that customers cannot officially verify their claims when it comes to the impact they have. They release numbers and claims without evidence to back this up to keep them relevant against their competitors.
• Every country does not follow the same rules, regulations and environmental policies. So it is extremely difficult to hold every business and corporation to the same standard across the globe. This leaves space for manipulating information. Reports can be falsely documented in favor of the company instead of in favor of ecological preservation.
• Greenwashing is used to attract investors without actually implementing any impactful change within a company. They promise to adopt more sustainable practices within the business in the future so that investors are drawn in, without any real action taking place.
• Greenwashing is easier, cheaper and less effort than actually fulfilling the claims that companies make to their customers. It is the easy way out. Especially when the system has made it virtually impossible for customers to request proof of their claims.
• Many companies do not have concise management when it comes to collecting data and understanding the environmental impact they have.

So let’s take a deeper look into how to identify greenwashing. And how this is “cleverly” achieved by so many companies worldwide.

HOW COMPANIES GREENWASH:

• Vague wording, buzz-words and broad claims. They use words that seem “green” and “sustainable” without any real evidence or action with regards to what that means within the company’s practices.
• They are inconsistent and unclear in their reporting regulations and don’t allow for this to be public knowledge. Their ESG reporting is vague and does not fully cover supply chains and production processes or an accurate measure of their carbon emissions.
• Companies can market their product as environmentally friendly but the process it took to create that product is unsustainable.
• They falsely advertise their product or service. Such as misrepresenting ingredients, derivatives, labour practices, etc. They make claims about their offerings to make them seem greener than what they actually are.
• They market their product/packaging/waste as recyclable but it can only be recycled in massive processing facilities.
• There is a major focus on one part of a business/product that might be eco-friendly just to shift focus away from all of the other unsustainable practices. Doing this in marketing also makes customers believe that the company as a whole is environmentally friendly, when in reality it is not.
• Irrelevant claims. For example a company might make a claim that a harmful substance isn’t present in their product. But in fact, by law, it has been banned in that country for many years. This is intentionally making their business look greener than what it actually is when they are just abiding by the laws of a country.
• False certifications and green labels to intentionally come across as reputable in the sustainable industry. False labels also means claiming to be sustainable within an environmentally destructive industry. For example, fast fashion brands claiming to have a sustainable collection but still producing clothing within the fast fashion business model.
• The use of green imagery to invoke a feeling of caring about the earth as a manipulation tactic.
• Companies make claims about their future goals in reducing carbon emissions, recycling, using more sustainable practices in production and resources, but they never fully take action on these claims. They do this to delay change that would cost them more money while still keeping the customer under the illusion that they are working towards a more sustainable and eco-friendly business structure.
• Companies shift the responsibility of taking care of the environment onto consumers. They blame consumers for what is happening on our planet. But in reality it is the irresponsible business practices of corporations and greedy companies who are at fault who can make the biggest difference if they actually cared about the earth.

RED FLAGS TO QUESTION AS A CUSTOMER:

• No transparency. It is difficult to access any reputable, in depth information about the company and their practices.
• No public ESG reporting with evidence to back up claims.
• Vague language with no definition of how the company is achieving the words used in their marketing. Instead, look for clear definitions and specific data claims of their practices over the years.
• Look at their claims and labels. See if the “sustainability” in those match the ingredients used, the packaging, the service, the labour practices and the supply chain.
• Companies that make big, broad and untraceable claims. This means that they have no numbers or timeline in their claims and they have no carbon emissions breakdown.
• Their business structure, investments and supply chain contradict their sustainability marketing claims. For example: they promote eco-friendly packaging but they produce their products in industrial warehouses that emit large amounts of carbon.
• Look to see if their “green” initiatives are just a side note to the overall business model. Or are their business practices based on this initiative?
• They have no third-party claims and no trace of who has verified their self-made claims/labels. Check if they are independently verified or have been verified with a reputable certification.
• They keep their environmentally friendly goals vague without any explanation of how they are taking action to implement the necessary steps. Are their promises being fulfilled in thoughtful steps? Or are they just empty promises for profits?
• Companies at fault for greenwashing will usually implement a big rebranding to distract from the environmental issues they have caused. This regains the trust of their customers even though no real action has taken place to better their practices.
• They have been involved in labour practice scrutinies and ethical scandals. Usually an indication of falsely representing their company’s ethics.

WHY IS GREENWASHING A MASSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM?

Not only is greenwashing used as a way to take advantage of consumers, but it is extremely detrimental to the environment and essential eco-systems that all living beings need in order to survive. How are we able to protect, preserve and care for the environment when there is no accurate representation of data from these companies? Greenwashing is creating the illusion that things are not as bad as they actually are. And this is extremely detrimental to climate and ecological change. We are only further delaying the preservation of our planet and our precious natural resources by allowing these companies to get away with their greed for profits.

“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”

– Robert Swan

UNSUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS:

When customers are intentionally mislead and manipulated into believing that who they are supporting with their hard-earned money is ethically driven for a more sustainable future, that money goes straight back into a system that is unsustainable and causes further harm. Customers are not able to make fully informed decisions and end up unknowingly contributing to environmental destruction.

We as consumers could have supported a more eco-friendly business with that same money. But instead, we have been deceived by marketing to support people who don’t care about the harmful effects they have on the earth. This also affects the companies who are actually striving for a greener future. Because not as many people are supporting their vision of a better business model that favors humans, nature and wildlife.

OVER-CONSUMPTION:

Just because a brand claims to be “sustainable” and “eco-friendly” doesn’t mean that they actually live up to the definition of those words. These words are thrown around to make customers feel better about their decisions to continue buying from a certain brand. For example, in the fast fashion industry, you see brands claiming to have sustainable practices in place. But their entire business model is centered around over-consumption and keeping up with the latest trends. This encourages people to impulse buy, creating incomprehensible amounts of waste that end up in landfills, oceans, rivers and essential eco-systems.

Greenwashing is a direct correlation to the over-consumption that has been conditioned into today’s consumerist culture. You can read more in depth about the effects of the fast fashion industry here: The 11 Worst Fast Fashion Brands to Stop Supporting.

TAKES FOCUS AWAY FROM ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS:

Do you know how many times an oil spill, a chemical mess or a dumping of unwanted products in the oceans and rivers gets overlooked and undermined?? It seems like when these things happen in our world today they get pushed aside. And instead we put the focus on wars, politics and who the next trending artist is.

The REAL, RAW, FACTUAL data of what effect this has on the environment would blow your mind. And do they share this in the news? No. Do they follow up on how these happenings are being corrected and more sustainable practices are being put in place? Of course not. What about the endangered animals being covered in massive oil spills that literally takes the land and the oceans decades to recover from? Or the rivers being turned into a chemical soup of dyes, detergents, solvents, micro-plastics and toxic heavy metals? What about waste ending up in the stomachs of wildlife? Or greenhouse gases disrupting eco-systems and changing the way nature intended to co-exist?

The data is so obscured that the reality of environmental crisis caused by greenwashing is greatly misunderstood. With no real data, no real recordings of carbon emissions and waste management, no real action can be taken and no real accountability can be held to the companies who are responsible for this destruction.

EXAMPLES OF COMPANIES WHO GREENWASH TO MANIPULATE CUSTOMERS:

Some of the companies I am about to mention may come as no surprise to you. While others may be companies that you would never expect to lie to their customers in order to make profit over caring about the environment. Especially when their entire brand pretends to be based on that exact value.

DISCLAIMER: the companies I mention below have been accused of greenwashing and some have faced penalties against false advertising and false claims. Many of these accusations come from lawsuits, investigations and regulatory reporting for alleged greenwashing.

FASHION BRANDS:

• H&M and Zara – both these fashion brands have built their success on the fast fashion business model. This completely contradicts their “conscious collections”. The data these companies release about their sustainability don’t equate to the evidence they provide. In 2021, The Changing Markets Foundation found H&M to be lying about 96% of their claims (source: the sustainable agency).
• Shein – the literal worst in the fast fashion industry with an ultra-fast fashion model. They use green-language across their marketing. While in the background their carbon emissions are increasing instead of decreasing like they claim in their goals to reduce carbon emissions by 2030. Both France and Italy have sued Shein for millions of dollars in 2025 for deceptive marketing and greenwashing.
• Alo Yoga – Alo stands for Air, Land, Ocean. Which is ironic as their brand is high-priced fast fashion. And they mostly use synthetic fibers, causing micro plastics to wash up into rivers and oceans. Good On You has rated Alo Yoga as “not good enough” on the sustainability standards. Their supply chain, manufacturing process and waste management is not transparently shared with the public. This makes people question their “sweat-shop free” claims.
• Nike & Adidas – both major brands have been accused of over-stating environmental goals through advertising and marketing campaigns without the actions to back them up. They rebrand old climate and carbon emissions goals to keep the hope of a more sustainable future in their companies alive, instead of actually reaching those goals. Adidas has specifically been targeted for marketing products as more green and eco-friendly than what they actually are.
• Lululemon – they have a “Be Planet” campaign and a green-imagery marketing strategy that deceives customers into believing the brand is eco-friendly and more sustainable than what it actually is. In reality, Lululemon continues to pollute the planet in their manufacturing processes. They also use high volumes of synthetic fabrics.

FOOD BRANDS:

• Nestlé – one of the largest culprits for plastic pollution in the whole world. The scale of their production does not match the sustainability claims and climate actions they make to actually reduce the negative effects they have on the environment. Nestlé has been involved in scandals of water exploitation in local communities, child labour and modern slavery for cacao harvesting in West Africa, unsustainable deforestation for palm oil, false advertising of their recyclable packaging and recycling goals for 2025, their mineral water was found to have faeces and bacteria in it despite selling it was natural mineral water and selling baby food and formula with additives and toxins in African countries that can cause illness.
  
  Greenpeace released a statement on Nestlé: “Nestlé’s statement on plastic packaging includes more of the same greenwashing baby steps to tackle a crisis it helped to create. It will not actually move the needle toward the reduction of single-use plastics in a meaningful way, and sets an incredibly low standard as the largest food and beverage company in the world.”
  Diving into the depths of everything that is wrong with Nestlé would take a thesis. I think I may just have to write another blog dedicated to sharing the horrors of this company.
• Coca-Cola – Coca-Cola has been found to be the worst plastic polluter in the world, more than Nestle and Pepsi combined. They release 1.32 billion pounds of plastic into the ocean and water systems each year! They even said that they will not abandon plastic bottles because they are popular amongst their customers. Coca-Cola continues to use green imagery in advertising and market their products as 100% recyclable. Even though the majority of bottles and packaging produced by them are never recycled. Keeping the focus on 100% recyclable packaging distracts from the detrimental issues that: this company is the biggest polluter of plastic globally. They continuously fall behind on their environmental targets. They promote sustainable packaging while using single-use plastics and still produce new plastics every day. All of these factors only adds to the issue at hand instead of reducing their impact.
• Nespresso & Lavazza – the overproduction of coffee pods has greatly increased plastic waste production. These companies have claimed that their coffee pods are 100% recyclable and that customers can throw them into their regular recycling bins. But these single-use plastic pods need to be sent to specialized recycling centers to be processed accurately. This makes them extremely difficult to be recycled by the average customer. Lavazza also claimed that their capsules are compostable – not disclosing that they are only industrially compostable.

OTHER COMPANIES:

• Volkswagen – they manufactured vehicles under the impression they were “clean-diesel”. When in fact, they had installed emissions cheating software in 11 million cars. This software covered up nitrogen oxide emissions that were 40 times over the legal limit. They faced 30 billion dollars worth of fines and settlements.
• BP & Shell – BP makes claims to invest in renewable energy and sustainability to keep the focus of their spending on the “good” changes they are making. While the majority of their spending is still heavily invested in fossil fuels. Both Shell and BP continue to expand the areas in which oil and gas is produced. This affects essential coastal eco-systems and local communities. Their environmental branding and marketing makes claims towards climate action and carbon-neutral fuel. This misleads and distracts from the major environmental issues these companies cause every day. Shell is responsible for 2% of global carbon emissions a year!
• Sea World – you may not relate captive animals to greenwashing. But many organizations involved in keeping wildlife for entertainment breech a number of laws and regulations that are set in place for the safety and well-being of the animals. Conditioning Killer Whales to perform for audiences is the main event of Sea World. Yet there have been multiple accusations of Sea World not treating these precious beings with enough care. They have shown unhealthy signs of neglect and unsuitable conditions for their well-being. They deny claims of Killer Whales being mistreated and refuse to release them.

• Johnson & Johnson – single-use plastics, cancer-causing ingredients, misleading marketing of baby products. Need I say more? Because between the pollutants, the lawsuits and the allegations against Johnson and Johnson, this company is far from sustainable. And has been accused of greenwashing by environmental NGOs and investigative journalism for multiple reasons. They faced a lawsuit against their baby wipes that were labelled as “100% plant-based” when they contained synthetic ingredients. This is deceptive marketing to make their products more green than they actually are. They use words such as “clean” and “pure” in advertising when their products were found to contain harmful ingredients and carcinogens. Their natural branding strategy does not equate to the massive scale of production and high volumes of single-use plastics.
• Sunscreen brands – have you noticed the little “Reef-Safe” label popping up on all the sunscreen brands in recent years? Did you know that most of the brands labelled as reef-safe are still harming essential coastal eco-systems and contaminating endangered coral reefs? Brands are allowed to claim that their sunscreen is reef-safe or reef-friendly because there are no official regulations on this. If a sunscreen brand removes Oxybenzone and Octinoxate from their ingredients, they are allowed to be labelled as reef-safe, even though their product contains other harmful ingredients. These include Homosalate, Octisalate, Octocrylene and Avobenzone. As well fragrances and preservatives that are toxic to sea life and harm marine environments. This is an obvious example of greenwashing by companies such as Aveeno, Neutrogena, Walgreens, Hawaiin Tropic, Sun Bum, Equate and Eucerin.

IS GREENWASHING ILLEGAL?

Greenwashing is illegal. But it does not mean that every company at fault for greenwashing will be held accountable for their actions. In order for a company to be lawfully accused of greenwashing, there needs to be substantial evidence of the claims being made against the company that they are misleading customers and/or providing false representations of their environmental impact and data.

So much of what is considered to be greenwashing, is labelled as unethical rather than illegal. This is why so many companies are able to get away with greenwashing. Despite the fact they their business model and marketing strategies have harmful and even detrimental effects on customers, employees, wildlife and the environment.

WHAT CAN I DO TO CALL OUT COMPANIES WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR GREENWASHING?

While the biggest change needs to come from regulatory reporting and much stricter regulations on environmental policies, there are a few things that we can do as consumers to have a more positive impact on the environment. How and where we choose to spend our money has an affect on essential eco-systems and the protection of our precious wildlife and resources across the world. Making a change begins with knowledge and educating ourselves about the realities of who and what we are supporting in our day-to-day lives.

There is one thing that I always remind people of who are questioning conscious consumerism and that is: these companies need us more than we need them. Every single company, corporation and big business who is involved in these detrimental acts for profit, rely on us as consumers to grow and make money. When we stop buying from them, their structures will fall to the ground. They will not be able to continue promoting over-consumption, over-charging customers, manipulating us for their own gains. And most importantly they will stop stripping the earth of everything that is important for nature to thrive.

BUT WHAT CAN I DO?

• Research a company’s ethics and look for their yearly ESG reports WITH evidence to back their claims.
• Look for reputable certifications that verify their status as an environmentally friendly business. Seeing their own vague claims such as “recyclable” “vegan” “eco-friendly” “a greener future” “free from…” is not a certified label.
• Do your research on ingredients, packaging, sourcing, supply chains. Decide whether these are red or green flags. And then consciously choose whether this is a company to support or boycott.
• You can also reach out to companies about specific questions you have regarding their product or service to make an informed decision.
• Reviews are truly a powerful tool. Especially with AI becoming increasingly influential, humans are relying more on real customer reviews to really understand the full scope of a product, service or company. Your voice is a powerful way to shed light on companies who use greenwashing. The more you speak up, the more customers become aware of the reality of greenwashing. And the less support these companies will receive from us.
• Speaking up on social media is a great way to spread information by word of mouth.
• Support ethical, eco-friendly and sustainable businesses instead – especially within your local communities.
• Join rallies and protests against companies who exploit local communities and eco-systems.
• Buy what you need, not what you want. Over-consumption is a massive contributor of greenwashing.

WE AS CONSCIOUS CONSUMERS CAN CHOOSE TO SUPPORT ETHICAL SMALL BUSINESSES INSTEAD:

After digging so much deeper into the what, how and why of greenwashing, it is clear that this is a major global issue that needs to be approached with stricter regulations from authorities and more knowledge from us as consumers to be able to consciously distinguish between companies that care and those that don’t.

We have a great responsibility as humans to do what we can to protect our natural resources and preserve eco-systems for generations to come. And we can do that when we have the awareness of what is truly happening behind the scenes of every day life. We can do that when we make better choices. These destructive systems cannot thrive or grow without us. And it is important to remember that that is the power we have.