A-Z Popular Blog Top Search »
Sustainability
 Advertisements
Related Guides

What is Greenwashing?

 , updated on
Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing practice that suggests that a product or firm is environmentally friendly when it is not.
In some cases, companies that have extremely poor environmental records make the most aggressive greenwashing claims. For example, they may adopt green slogans and visual symbols meant to distract from their actions as a firm.
Greenwashing also has many grey areas such as firms that publicize minor steps to be more environmentally friendly. Firms that make major strides to reduce pollution may also be accused of greenwashing if their overall impact on the environment is highly negative.
Many jurisdictions have begun to regulate green claims in marketing in various ways. There are ways to discourage greenwashing such as disallowing vague claims of environmental friendliness and only allowing claims that are specifically backed up by data. However, firms may get around this by pointing to statistically insignificant examples of something they did that was green.
Overview: Greenwashing
Type
Definition
A deceptive marketing practice that suggests that a product or firm is environmentally friendly when it is not.
Examples
Use of the color green on products.
Vague green slogans and visual symbols.
Green brand names for products that damage the environment.
Highlighting actions or donations that are insignificant compared to the overall damage generated by a firm's activities.
Notes
Greenwashing has many grey areas such as firms that publicize meaningful actions in an industry that is a heavy polluter.
It can be difficult to regulate greenwashing because governments lack standard means of evaluating the environmental impact of a firm or product. Ideally, each firm would have an environmental rating that is required to be published with any green claims.
Related Concepts

Sustainability

This is the complete list of articles we have written about sustainability.
Adaptive Reuse
Anthropocene
Biochar
Broken Window Fallacy
Carbon Concrete
Cascading Failure
Circular Economy
Cities
Clean Air Zone
Clean Label
Climate Engineering
CO2 Per Capita
Coal Power
Comparative Risk
Creeping Normality
Cultural Lag
Cycle Highway
Daylighting
Deconstruction
Deep Water Cooling
Dematerialization
Disaster Preparedness
District Heating
Do No Harm
Do Nothing Farming
Dollar Voting
Downcycling
Durability
Economic Bad
Ecotax
Efficiency
Electric Boat
Embodied Energy
Environmental Issues
Environmental Justice
Environmental Problems
Existential Risk
Farm Robots
Fertilizer Tree
Fire Ecology
Food Sovereignty
Forest Dieback
Fruit Bagging
Future-Proofing
Global Change
Global Issues
Global Warming
Green Facade
Green Facades
Green Industry
Green Roof
Green Walls
Greenwashing
Happiness Economics
Happiness Index
High-Speed Rail
Holocene Extinction
Human Scale
Jevons Paradox
Keyhole Garden
Keystone Species
Land Footprint
Light Pollution
Living Street
Market Failure
Material Diversity
Microplastics
Missing Market
Moral Hazard
Natural Capital
Natural Resources
Nearly Car Free
Noise Pollution
Ocean Plastic Cleanup
Outside Context Problem
Overconsumption
Particulate Matter
Parts
Passive Design
Point Of No Return
Pollution
Polyculture
Precautionary Principle
Product Transparency
Quality Of Life
Race To The Bottom
Rainwater Harvesting
Repair Cafe
Resilience
Resilient Cities
Reusability
Reuse
Rewilding
Right To Know
Safety By Design
Scarcity
Silvopasture
Slow Design
Slow Movement
Smart Glass
Social Responsibility
Soft Engineering
Soil Carbon
Space Junk
Sunlight Transport
Superabundance
Sustainability
Sustainable Design
Sustainable Economics
Sustainable Lighting
Sustainable Materials
Tactical Urbanism
Uneconomic Growth
Upcycling
Urban Density
Urban Design
Urban Heat Island
Urban Reforestation
Waste Is Food
Water Security
If you enjoyed this page, please consider bookmarking Simplicable.
 

Existential Risk

An overview of existential risk.

Precautionary Principle

An overview of the precautionary principle.

Comparative Risk

A definition of comparative risk with examples.

Energy Efficiency

The common types of energy efficiency.

External Stakeholders

The definition of external stakeholder with examples.

Economic Bad

Common examples of an economic bad.

Win-Lose

The definition of win-lose with examples.

Climate Engineering

An overview of climate engineering.

Soil Carbon

Why carbon soil is important.

Business Risks

A list of common business risks.

Risk Treatment

The five things that can be done about risk.

Risk Management Effectiveness

A metric for measuring risk management.

Positive Risk

The potential that you'll achieve too much of a good thing.

Dread Risk

Any risk that people have a strong aversion too.

Risk Taking

The definition of risk taking with examples.

Risk Examples

A list of risk examples by type.

Risk Probability vs Risk Impact

The two main factors in modeling a risk.

Calculated Risk

A definition of calculated risk with an example.

Relative Risk

How to calculate relative risk with examples.
The most popular articles on Simplicable in the past day.

New Articles

Recent posts or updates on Simplicable.
Site Map