Greenwashing is making headlines ever so often,everybody talks about it, in Hempstatic, we get questions about this from friends and family members, asking for our opinion. So let’s get into it briefly:
Simply put, greenwashing is the misleading marketing practice of companies when they present themselves as environmentally sound, clean or green, while engaging in conventionally unsustainable actions and practice.
By promoting environmentally friendly programs, companies and corporations tend to deflect attention from their environmentally unfriendly activities.
As they get under larger environmental and societal pressure and scrutiny, they integrated greenwashing as part of the corporate social responsibility.
books ngram viewer shows historical usage of the term in literature, and from 2002 we can observe a steep increase:
The origins of greenwashing could be traced as early as in the 1960s after the US`s environmental movement gained momentum, and prompted companies to start dealing with their environmental footprint.
The term was coined in 1986 essay from Jay Westerveld, former pro snowboarder, NYC environmentalist and activist, in an essay on the hotel industry and their practices to promote towel reuse as a water conservation strategy, while actually being only a scheme to save the costs of washing instead.
The increase in greenwashing, lead to the emergence of a trust problem, since customers have difficulties in identifying a true green claim. True green claims are suffering from greater customer skepticism, as it is hard to differentiate the reliability of green marketing.
So called green skepticism emerged as a result of that. Examples are literally everywhere, in every industry. The newest trends of greenwashing in the construction industry, the largest polluting sector and in the long run the least innovative one, revolve around false energy efficiency claims, misleading material sourcing, exaggerated green certifications, overly bold carbon neutrality claims, and overstated renewable energy usage.
They often look something like this:
“Sustainability in the construction industry is already solved…”
“Everything will be recycled so there is no problem already…”
“CO2-neutral concrete …”
“Buy our product and we will plant trees for you… “
Greenwashing managed to spread to multiple stages of our society, essentially from companies to institutions and even the public sector. Some of the perpetrators hold important positions in institutions, which claim to be doing “positive activities towards sustainability”. Having the biggest polluters as presidents… Quite controversial.
Even the UN Climate Change Conference COP28 is stained with a large amount of substantiated greenwashing accusations. It contributed to a distrust of the real mission and authenticity of the important global conference. First COP was held in 1995, since then, the progress was rather slow.
The fight against greenwashing requires informed consumers and citizens that demand authenticity and hold companies accountable for their environmental promises, but it is also necessary to put a legislative end to these practices. Til now, there has been no significant consequences for the companies, so they further clog the public space with false claims.
Good news is, that beside serious lawsuits like the recent one against airlines in Europe, the EU wants to outlaw greenwashing practices altogether. Unfortunately not earlier than 2026, as the laws were proposed in March 2023.
From the perspective of an impact startup, it’s long overdue!