de 

Freitas Netto et al. Environ Sci Eur (2020) 32:19

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-020-0300-3

REVIEW Open Access

Concepts and forms of greenwashing:

a systematic review
Sebastião Vieira de Freitas Netto1, Marcos Felipe Falcão Sobral2*  , Ana Regina Bezerra Ribeiro2
and Gleibson Robert da Luz Soares2

Abstract 
Background:  The aggravation of environmental problems has led companies to seek the development and com-
mercialization of green products. Some companies mislead their stakeholders through a phenomenon called
greenwashing.
Results:  This paper aims to explore the phenomenon of greenwashing through a systematic literature review in
search of its main concepts and typologies in the past 10 years. This research has followed the proceedings of a
systematic review of the literature, based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses
(PRISMA). We identified a major classification of greenwashing: firm-level executional, firm-level claim, product-level
executional, and product-level claim.
Conclusion:  It was possible to highlight and catalog the types of the phenomenon. A structure based on such type
has been observed in the literature.
Keywords:  Green marketing, Greenwashing, Systematic review

Background more aware of environmental consideration [7]. Over

Since the aggravation of environmental pollution, many the past decade, stakeholders like investors, consumers,
companies around the world have been paying more governments, and corporate customers are increasing
attention to environmental issues [20, 41, 53]. In China, the pressure on companies to disclose information about
environmental problems such as haze and water pollu- their environmental performance [25, 30] and for envi-
tion have become increasingly prominent [21]. ronmental-friendly products [21].
India is facing environmental issues such as rising air According to Vollero et  al. [49], companies from the
pollution, loss of food security and e-waste disposal pol- energy sector experiences increasing pressure from
lution [16]. They have a 1.2 billion population and have stakeholders to produce sustainable products and clean
generated 2.3 k MtCO2 emissions into the atmosphere in energy. Environmental awareness has grown on soci-
2017 [18], classifying themselves as the third most pol- ety [1, 39, 52], and especially on consumers [1], they are
luter country only behind China and the US, long-time eager for environmental-friendly products [6, 9].
polluter ace. The Nielsen Media Research [33] presented that 66%
Due to increasing of environmental problems, and con- of global consumers are willing to pay more for envi-
sequently in public awareness, many stakeholders are ronmentally friendly products. When these customers
perceive firms as socially responsible, they may be more
willing to buy the products from these firms at a higher
*Correspondence: [email protected] price [19, 21].
2
Departamento de Administração, Federal Rural University In order to respond to these issues, Corporate Social
of Pernambuco, Avenida Dom Manoel de Medeiros, s/n, Dois Irmãos,
Recife, PE, Brazil
Responsibility (CSR) is gaining importance among busi-
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article ness leaders [39]. CSR is defined as “a concept whereby

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companies integrate social and environmental concerns reality behind corporate environmentalism can be disap-
in their business operations and in their interaction with pointing, TerraChoice [48] reported that 95% of products
their stakeholders on a voluntary basis” [13]. claiming to be green in Canada and the USA committed
To reach the integration of social and environmental at least one of the “sins of greenwashing”, from the sin of
concerns in business operations companies must be sus- the hidden trade-off to the sin of worshiping false labels.
tainable and socially responsible [1], not only economi- Greenwashing was first accused in 1986 by activist Jay
cally. They have to aim the three bottom lines: economic, Westerveld, when hotels begin asking guests to reuse
environmental and social performance or people, planet towels, claiming that it was a company water conserva-
and profit [12]. tion strategy, although, did not have any environmen-
Sustainable development is defined by “development tal actions with more significant environmental impact
that meets the needs of the present without compromis- issues [38].
ing the ability of future generations to meet their own According to advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather,
needs” [51]. The growing demand “drives firms to develop greenwashing practices are growing in the last decades
green marketing strategies to show consumers their good to epidemic proportions [24]. With the increase of green
corporate image and social responsibility” ([53], p. 740). markets, followed by greenwashing, a trust problem has
Since reported by Delmas and Burbano [11], the green emerged since customers have difficulties in identifying a
market is proliferating. Consumer, capital markets, prod- true green claim [34].
ucts, services, and firms have been expanding. As there Green skepticism has grown with greenwashing, and
is an increase in green markets, it is followed by the it would obstruct green marketing [8]. Real green claims
phenomenon of greenwashing [28]. The phenomenon is would suffer from greater skepticism since it is hard for
defined as “the intersection of two firm behaviours: poor customers to differentiate the reliability of green market-
environmental performance and positive communication ing initiatives. TerraChoice [48] has released a study to
about environmental performance” ([11], p. 65). help customers identify greenwashing practices by com-
There are many different definitions of greenwashing, panies with the seven sins of greenwashing.
in various perspectives. This review attends to search the In developed countries that have more significant envi-
recent literature to identify the different definitions of ronmental awareness, the regulation from the authorities
greenwashing and its forms. The primary purpose of this is in a higher level of development compared to devel-
article is to analyze the different typologies and charac- oping countries, in the US regulation of greenwashing
teristics of greenwashing. In order to achieve the objec- is extremely limited with uncertain regulation enforce-
tive, we sought to systematically review the last 10 years ment [11]. In response to such non-binding regulatory
in the literature. A systematic literature review has been guidelines, scholars, activists and environmentalists have
conducted in search of the phenomenon definitions and argued that it inadequately protects consumers from the
related concepts; and its characteristics and typologies. harmful effects of the phenomenon of greenwashing [15].
Stakeholders and society in general, demands transpar- There are none or poor green regulation in developing
ency in disclosing information about the environmental countries governments even though the mass population
impact of companies activities, this communication must does have any or poor concerns about environmental
be dynamic, through different channels and with the care. The practice of recycling by waste sorting and col-
purpose of educating awareness [1]. The Federal Trade lection that seems to be a regular thing to do by the mil-
Commission ([14], p. 62122) instructs to “use clear and lennials in developed countries [35], on the other side in
prominent qualifying language to convey that a general emerging countries, it is a privilege to have it.
environmental claim refers only to a specific and limited This paper is structured as follows, in Methods we
environmental benefit(s)”. describe the methodological procedures, research ques-
The advent of Web 2.0 brings new social media tools, tions, and search strategy. The next topic was presented
and stakeholders can exercise new forms of interacting the results followed by the discussion. The last topic is
and sharing information through the Internet. Online the conclusions.
corporate pages or blogs, wiki and petitions websites,
and particularly social networks like Twitter and Face- Methods
book are redefining the interactions and communications This research has followed the proceedings of a sys-
between companies and their stakeholders [17]. tematic review of the literature, based on the Preferred
Some companies invest in green marketing commu- Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-
nications, to be perceived as eco-friendly and socially Analyses (PRISMA). PRISMA is not a quality assess-
engaged. They advertise and CSR to achieve better pur- ment mechanism, although it may be useful for critical
chase intentions and brand attitudes [34]. However, the appraisal by reviewers and editors. Its objective is to help

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authors to improve the reporting of systematic reviews Table 1  Databases and search filters
and meta-analyses [40]. Database Search filters
A protocol has been developed to specify the carefully
planning proceedings and eligibility criteria, to select Scopus * Search in: Article Title,
Abstract, Keywords
and identify the data of documents. According to Sham-
* Document type: Article
seer et al. [44], a protocol is an essential component of a
* Source type: Journal
systematic review, in the protocol are specified the pre-
* Data range: 2009 to 2018
defined eligibility criteria and methodological approach,
* Language: All
which ensures the consistency by the review team,
Web of Science (WoS) * Search in: Topic
accountability, research integrity and transparency.
* Document type: Article
* Data range: 2009 to 2018
Research questions
* Language: All

• RQ 1: Which are the main definitions of Greenwash-

ing and their evolution over the past 10 years?
the researchers worked individually on the inclusion
• RQ 2: Which are the characteristics and forms of
or exclusion of the documents and then compared the
Greenwashing?
spreadsheets. When a divergence occurred and a consen-
sus was not possible a third researcher was consulted. If
the divergence still remained, the document was included
Search strategy in the list.
All content and papers selected for each phase of the In the second stage, the selection was performed on
review were available for all the researchers in the cloud, documents that fairly satisfied selection criteria based
the data sheets were created using a document cloud on the introductions and conclusions reading. Similar to
base application that enables collaboration from differ- the first stage, the process was also managed in pairs with
ent persons remotely located. This strategy enabled bet- the same strategy in case of divergencies described in the
ter control and enhanced standardization of the process first stage.
of the systematic review.
With the purpose of identifying and recovering the
smallest possible number of publications, the research Data extraction and quality assessment
incorporates a search strategy. The resources used to In the extraction stage, all the selected documents were
searches are Web of Science (http://www.webof​scien​ assessed concerning the methodological quality, yet the
ce.com); and Scopus (http://www.scopu​s.com). results were not used to limit the selection.
Scopus search engine offers a better tool in terms of
detailed string than Web of Science. The search string Results
from Scopus can be developed with a much-specified We extracted 263 articles from Scopus and Web of Sci-
search query. When the search strings were applied, 84 ence, which eliminated all those present in both bases.
publications were identified from Scopus and 179 from Then, the title and abstract were read, resulting in 149
Web of Science, representing a total of 263 publications articles. Finally, the introduction and conclusion were
considering both engines. read, leaving 67 documents. After the complete reading,
The keywords applied in the search engines were: 42 articles completely met the review protocol as pre-
“greenwashing”, “greenwash” and “greenwasher”. Table  1 sented in Fig. 1.
shows the specific search filters used on both Scopus and Table  2 reports the publication names of the journals
Web of Science databases. that were included in the review. The journal that pub-
lished most of the studies is “Journal of Business Ethics”,
Data selection followed by “BioTechnology: An Indian Journal”, “Journal
The data selection was performed in two steps: the first of Advertising”, “Journal of Business and Technical Com-
stage involved a Title and Abstract analyses; and the munication”, and “Journal of Cleaner Production”.
second stage involved an Introduction and Conclusion The 67 documents included in the review were pub-
analyses. lished in 50 different journals. There is a strong presence
In the first stage, an initial selection was performed on of publications from “Journal of Business Ethics” with 11
documents that reasonably satisfied the selection cri- selected documents. This journal is devoted to a wide
teria based on the titles and abstracts reading. The pro- variety of methodological and disciplinary perspectives
cess was handled in pairs to reduce possible bias and related to ethical issues in business.

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Fig. 1  Results achieved on each stage at the systematic review process

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Table 2  Number of articles included in the review per each journal

Publication name Number of documents Area of interest

Journal of Business Ethics 11 Ethics

Biotechnology: An Indian Journal 3 Biotechnology
Journal of Advertising 2 Communication
Journal of Business and Technical Communication 2 Business
Journal of Cleaner Production 2 Engineering, Environmental
Marketing Intelligence & Planning 2 Business
Organization & Environment 2 Management
Others (one document per journal) 43
Total 67

Fig. 2  Evolution of the number of reviewed documents over time

There is a majority of Business and Management jour- increasing interest for the phenomenon of greenwashing
nals related to Environment and Sustainability issues in in the literature.
the selected papers. Others journals brought the green- Due to the objective of this paper, documents included
washing phenomenon in the fields of Advertising and in the review have been examined with precise atten-
Communications, Economics, Sociology and Ethics, Pro- tion to two main topics: definitions of greenwashing and
duction Engineering, Marketing, Accounting, Tourism, related concepts; and the phenomenon characteristics
Education and others. These results show the multidisci- and typology. 67 documents provided insights on defi-
plinary characteristic of the phenomenon. nitions of greenwashing and related concepts. From the
The selection included only papers in the period of 67 selected documents, 17 also provided insights on the
2009–2018, but no documents from 2009 and 2010 phenomenon characteristics and typology.
were included in this research. Observing Fig. 2 there is
a relevant increase in the number of studies over time,
with a peak in 2017. This trend suggests that there is an

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Discussion information about a company’s environmental or social

The term Greenwashing was coined first in 1986, by an performance, without full disclosure of negative informa-
environmentalist Jay Westervelt. He published an essay tion on these dimensions, so as to create an overly posi-
on the hospitality industry about their practices to pro- tive corporate image”.
mote towel reuse [20, 52]. Lyon and Maxwell [26] assume social and environmen-
Several dictionaries define the phenomenon of green- tal dimensions on their work, others consider only the
washing, Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary of Eng- environmental dimension, considering the social dimen-
lish [31] defines greenwash as “practice of promoting sion a different phenomenon.
environmentally friendly programs to deflect attention Marquis et  al. ([30], p. 483) define selective disclo-
from an organization’s environmentally unfriendly or sure as “a symbolic strategy whereby firms seek to gain
less savoury activities”. In 1999 the term was added to or maintain legitimacy by disproportionately revealing
the Concise Oxford English Dictionary [36], that defines beneficial or relatively benign performance indicators to
it as: “Disinformation disseminated by an organization obscure their less impressive overall performance”.
so as to present an environmentally responsible public
image; a public image of environmental responsibility Greenwashing as decoupling
promulgated by or for an organization, etc., but perceived Some authors associate greenwashing to a decoupling
as being unfounded or intentionally misleading”. behavior. Siano et  al. ([45], p. 27) relate greenwashing
According to Lyon and Montgomery [27], there is no with symbolic actions, “which tend to deflect attention to
rigid definition of greenwashing due to its multifaceted minor issues or lead to create ‘green talk’ through state-
nature. Above we describe the different main approaches ments aimed at satisfying stakeholder requirements in
we found in defining the phenomenon of greenwashing. terms of sustainability but without any concrete action”.
Walker and Wan [50] defines greenwashing as the gap
between “symbolic” and “substantive” corporate social
Greenwashing as selective disclosure actions (CSA). Companies that have a negative CSR per-
TerraChoice [48] defines greenwashing as “the act of mis- formance and at the same time apply a positive commu-
leading consumers regarding the environmental practices nication about their CSR performance.
of a company or the environmental performance and pos- As defined by Guo et al. ([22], p. 1828) greenwashing is
itive communication about environmental performance”. essentially decoupling behaviours that are symbolic envi-
Delmas and Burbano ([11], p. 67) define as “poor envi- ronmental protection behaviours with no environmental
ronmental performance and positive communication protection behaviour or failure to fulfil environmental
about environmental performance”. Baum ([2], p. 424) protection commitments, to alleviate the external pub-
considers greenwashing “the act of disseminating disin- lic pressures and uncertainties and to avoid the conflict
formation to consumers regarding the environmental with external constituents. The authors reinforce that
practices of a company or the environmental benefits of these decoupling behaviors of greenwashing brands are
a product or service”. to maintain corporate legitimacy.
Tateishi ([47], p. 3) summarizes greenwashing as
“communication that misleads people regarding envi- Signaling and corporate legitimacy theory
ronmental performance/benefits by disclosing nega- The phenomenon of greenwashing was also related to
tive information and disseminating positive information corporate legitimacy theory in the literature. It can be
about an organization, service, or product”. distinguished in three types of corporate legitimacy: cog-
All of these authors describe the phenomenon as two nitive legitimacy, pragmatic legitimacy and moral legiti-
main behaviors simultaneously: retain the disclosure of macy. According to Seele and Gatti [43], greenwashing
negative information related to the company’s environ- occurs in the light of pragmatic legitimacy.
mental performance and expose positive information “Cognitive legitimacy is based on the shared taken-for-
regarding its environmental performance. This two- granted assumptions of an organization’s societal envi-
folded behavior can be named as selective disclosure. ronment. Moral legitimacy relies on moral judgments
We found several articles considering greenwashing a about the organization and its behaviour…“ ([43], p. 242).
type of selective disclosure. Lyon and Maxwell [26] pre- And pragmatic legitimacy is “the result of self-interested
sented the first economic analysis of greenwash, with calculations of the organization’s key stakeholders, and
specific persuasion game approach from Milgrom and it is based on stakeholder’s perceptions of their personal
Roberts [32]. Lyon and Maxwell ([26], p. 9) consider benefit deriving from corporate activities and communi-
selective disclosure a form of greenwashing and define cation.” ([43], p. 242).
the phenomenon as “selective disclosure of positive

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Fig. 3  Major classifications of greenwashing

Guo et  al. [22] explain that when companies fail to

reach their green goals, the decoupling behaviors can
reduce cognitive legitimacy (take-for grandness of con-
stituents), moral legitimacy (positive green evaluation),
and pragmatic legitimacy (benefiting constituents).

Which are the characteristics and forms of greenwashing?

According to Delmas and Burbano [11] greenwashing is
the act of misleading consumers regarding the environ-
mental practices of an organization (firm-level) or the
environmental benefits of a product or service (product/
service-level). An example of firm-level greenwashing is
the “Ecomagination” campaign from General Electric
which advertised the organization’s environmental prac-
tices while at the same time lobbied to fight new clean air
EPA requirements [11]. An example of product/service-
level greenwashing is the Energy Star mis-certified refrig-
erators from LG, an eco-label of energy efficiency, which
was found that 10 models of LG’s refrigerators were not
energy efficient to be certified [11].
We found two different major classifications of green- Fig. 4  Types of claims [5]
washing: Claim greenwashing and Executional green-
washing. The studies on the literature concentrate on
product/service-level claim greenwashing, while execu-
tional greenwashing was found only on two articles in ecological benefits of a product or service to create a mis-
this revision. Figure  3 shows the main classifications in leading environmental claim.
the phenomenon of greenwashing. Parguel et  al. [37], cited a study from 1991 in which
Kangun, Carlson and Grove distinguished three catego-
Claim greenwashing ries of greenwashed advertising: (1) those employing
The majority of research to date has focused on prod- false claims; (2) those omitting important informa-
uct/service-level claim greenwashing, which uses tex- tion that could help evaluate the claim sincerity, and
tual arguments that explicitly or implicitly refer to the (3) those employing vague or ambiguous term, which

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two or more of the categories above; and (e) accepta-

ble—claims that do not contain a deceptive feature [47].
The claims are presented in Fig. 5.
An environmental marketing firm called TerraChoice
[48] has created a classification called “the seven sins of
greenwashing”. The classification has been cited in sev-
eral articles, Scanlan [42] cited that it includes various
fibs, half-truths, vagueness and other forms of trickery.
Markham et al. [29] described that the seven sins assist
more precisely in detecting instances of firm-based or
product-based greenwashing.
Baum [2] cited that the seven sins of greenwashing
can indicate the main ways in which a company can
mislead consumers with environmental claims and uses
these seven sins as a framework for their advertising
analysis. According to Antunes et  al. [1], the objective
of the seven sins is to discourage companies to apply
these green marketing strategies by giving the consum-
ers information they need to be cautious in their pur-
chase decisions.
Fig. 5  Claim deceptiveness [5] Delmas and Burbano [11] explain that the TerraChoice
Group’s seven sins are all product-level greenwashing.
We have found quotes on 10 articles outlining the seven
sins of greenwashing that are described below [48]:
could be summed up as lying, lying by omission or lying
through lack of clarity. 1. The sin of the hidden trade-off: a claim suggesting
From Tateishi [47] and Baum [2] we found cited a that a product is ‘green’ based on a narrow set of
study conducted by Carlson et  al. [5] that developed attributes without attention to other important envi-
two typologies of green claims: (1) claim type; and (2) ronmental issues. Paper, for example, is not necessar-
claim deceptiveness. Claim type involves five typologi- ily environmentally preferable just because it comes
cal categories: (a) product orientation—claims centring from a sustainably harvested forest. Other important
on the ecological attribute of a product; (b) process environmental issues in the paper-making process,
orientation—claims centring on the ecological high such as greenhouse gas emissions, or chlorine use
performance of a production process technique, and/ in bleaching may be equally important [48]. Other
or an ecological disposal method; (c) image orienta- examples are energy, utilities and gasoline corpora-
tion—claims centring on enhancing the eco-friendly tions that advertise about the benefits of new sources
image of an organization, like claims that associates an of energy while some are drilling into unexplored
organization with an environmental cause or activity areas to source oil and thus destroying natural habi-
which there is elevated public support; (d) environmen- tats and losing biodiversity, disguising the imbued
tal fact—claims that involves an independent statement hidden tradeoff [2].
that is ostensibly factual in nature from an organization 2. The sin of no proof: an environmental claim that can-
about the environment at large, or its condition; and (e) not be substantiated by easily accessible supporting
combination—claims having two or more of the catego- information or by a reliable third-party certification.
ries above [2, 47]. The types of claims are presented in Common examples are facial tissues or toilet tissue
Fig. 4. products that claim various percentages of post-
These claim types presented above can be classified consumer recycled content without providing evi-
in a second typology, claim deceptiveness, that also dence [48]. In short terms, if a corporation makes a
involves five typological categories: (a) vague/ambigu- claim that includes some kind of percentage or sta-
ous—claims that are overly vague, ambiguous, too tistics info that are not verified with something that
broad, and/or lacking a clear definition; (b) omission— could prove it, like a fine-print text or a URL to lead
claims missing the necessary information to evaluate to more information, the claim is considered as no
its validity; (c) false/outright lie—claims that are inac- proof [2].
curate or a fabrication; (d) combination—claims having

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3. The sin of vagueness: a claim that is poorly defined 9. The sin of fearmongering: claims that fabricate
or too broad, a claim lacking in specifics that its real insecurity related to not “buying in” on an organi-
meaning is inclined to be misunderstood by the con- zation practice, like OGI hydraulic fracking [42].
sumer. ‘All-natural’ is an example of this sin. Arse- Scanlan ([42], p. 16) explains that “shifting the scale
nic, uranium, mercury, and formaldehyde are all of fear and seizing opportunities from instability
naturally occurring, and poisonous. ‘All natural’ isn’t and uncertainty borne out of wars in Afghanistan
necessarily ‘green’ [48]. Other examples are “Non- and Iraq, the global war on terror, and volatile fuel
toxic” because everything is toxic in certain dosages; costs, alter the public perception of risk”.
“Green”, “Environmentally friendly”, “Eco-friendly”, 10. The sin of broken promises: claims promising that
and “Eco-conscious” are also vague because without fracking will lift up poor, rural communities with
elaboration they are meaningless [2]. riches from mineral rights and economic devel-
4. The sin of worshipping false labels: a product that, opment, but when evidence shows the contrary,
through a false suggestion or certification-like image, communities are left with irreversible impacts
mislead consumers into thinking that it has been ([46] apud [42]). Scanlan [42] describes that green-
through a legitimate green certification process. washing obscures who loses regarding the negative
An example is a paper towel whose packaging has a impacts of fracking and OGI profits from exploit-
certification-like image that makes a claim that the ing the hopes and trust of the citizenry.
product “fights global warming” [48]. Other exam- 11. The sin of injustice: according to Scanlan [42] the
ples include green jargon such as “eco-safe” and “eco- environmental communication examined in his
preferred” [2]. research does not speak directly to communities
5. The sin of irrelevance: an environmental claim that most affected by fracking, it focuses on a segment
may be truthful but is unimportant or unhelpful for of the population that benefits from fracking but do
consumers seeking environmentally preferable prod- not suffer its consequences.
ucts. ‘CFC-free’ is a common example, since it is a 12. The sin of hazardous consequences: greenwashing
frequent claim despite the fact that CFCs are banned hides the reality of inequality and distracts the pub-
by law [48]. lic from the dangers of risk other experience, Scan-
6. The sin of lesser of two evils: a claim that may be true lan [42] includes another sin in reference to harm
within the product category, but that risks distract- done from hazardous consequences.
ing the consumer from the greater environmental 13. The sin of profits over people and the environment:
impacts of the category as a whole. Organic ciga- to profit over people and the environment is what
rettes could be an example of this Sin, as might the Scanlan [42] describes as potentially the greatest
fuel-efficient sport-utility vehicle [48]. greenwashing sin of all.
7. The sin of fibbing: environmental claims that are sim-
ply false. The most common examples were products “The delivery of false hopes and resulting broken prom-
falsely claiming to be Energy Star certified or regis- ises, fearmongering that reorients public understand-
tered [48]. ing of risk and the hazardous consequences of fracking,
environmental injustice, and the pursuit of profits over
Scanlan [42] conducted a research in the oil gas indus- people and the environment have serious impacts on the
try (OGI) communication on hydraulic fracking and planet” ([42], p. 20).
proposed new sins related to the conceptualization of Contreras-Pacheco and Claasen [10] brought five firm-
greenwashing. The OGI masks harm done and other risks level greenwashing: (1) dirty business; (2) ad bluster; (3)
with greenwashing in the form of new sins he elaborated political spin; (4) it is the law, stupid! [4]. Fifth firm-level
build on TerraChoice [48]: (8) false hopes; (9) fearmon- greenwashing form: (5) fuzzy reporting [3].
gering; (10) broken promises; (11) injustice; (12) hazard-
ous consequences; and (13) profits over people and the • Dirty business: belonging to an inherently unsustain-
environment [42]. able business, but promoting sustainable practices
or products that are not representative either for the
8. The sin of false hopes: a claim that reinforces a false business or the society.
hope. The OGI hydraulic fracking method has an • Ad bluster: diverting attention from sustainable
enormous negative impact on the environment, issues, through the use of advertising. It is used to
critics argue that ecological modernization is not exaggerate achievements or present alternative pro-
possible and believing otherwise is harmful to the grams that are not related to the main sustainability
environment [42]. concern.

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• Political spin: influencing regulations or governments researchers from several areas such as Business, Commu-
in order to obtain benefits that affect sustainability. nication, Economy, Production Engineering, Social Sci-
It is common to notice that these spins are “justi- ences, Environmental Management and Law.
fied” due to companies character of large taxpayers or Some scholars consider only environmental issues
employers. when talking about greenwashing, distinguishing it with
• It’s the law, stupid!: proclaiming sustainability accom- the term bluewashing, which stands for social issues.
plishments or commitments that are already required Others researchers do not distinguish and consider
by existing laws or regulations. greenwashing a social and environmental phenomenon.
• Fuzzy reporting: taking advantage of sustainability We can see that greenwashing can be perceived and
reports and their nature of one-way communication accused by the observer in several different ways. From
channel, in order to twist the truth or project a posi- product-level claims with environmental labeling to firm-
tive image in terms of CSR corporate practices. level nature-evoked executional elements in sustain-
ability reports, the phenomenon may be classified in a
complex variety of options.
Executional greenwashing This multifaceted amount of forms in which green-
Parguel et  al. [37] described a new form of greenwash- washing has been observed offers difficulty for consum-
ing that the authors called ‘Executional Greenwashing’. ers to identify the phenomenon manifestations. Even
This strategy of greenwashing does not use any type of among consumers considered expert consumers, well
claim that was described before, but it suggests nature- informed about greenwashing and the market in ques-
evoking elements such as images using colors (e.g., green, tion, it is a challenge to identify greenwashing. In con-
blue) or sounds (e.g., sea, birds). Backgrounds represent- sumers considered regular, who do not know or have
ing natural landscapes (e.g., mountains, forests, oceans) limited information about the phenomenon, the accusa-
or pictures of endangered animal species (e.g., pandas, tion process is even more complicated.
dolphins) or renewable sources of energy (e.g., wind, The main definitions of greenwashing were explored
waterfalls) are examples of executional nature-evoking in the literature. Most researchers are based on the def-
elements [37]. The research addressed to this gap in the initions of the Oxford English Dictionary [36] and Ter-
literature by documenting the executional greenwashing raChoice [48]. In these definitions, the phenomenon is
effect based on advertising execution knowledge. seen as a deliberate corporate action with the presence
These nature-evoking elements, intentionally or not, of misleading elements, focused on the deception of
may induce false perceptions of the brand’s greenness. stakeholders.
According to Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibáñez ([23], apud As greenwashing was first accused in 1986 by Jay Wes-
Parguel et al. [37], p. 2) these elements can “trigger eco- terveld [38], an activist who noticed an organizational
logical inferences subtly by activating implicit references communication with a misleading trait, the element of
to nature through nature imagery”. accusation is key in the process. Seele and Gatti [43] were
Parguel et al. [37] conducted a research that presented the only researchers who observed the phenomenon by
empirical evidence of the misleading effect of these adding the accusation as a key element in the process, a
nature-evoking elements named ‘executional greenwash- charge or claim from a third party that someone has done
ing effect’ and moderator factors that may reduce its something illegal or wrong. Without the accusation ele-
impact. The research consisted of a web survey consid- ment, the definition of the phenomenon is incomplete.
ering two types of consumers: (a) non-expert consumers Aiming to reach the first objective, this review
and (b) expert consumers. exposed the main definitions of greenwashing present
The empirical results showed that the presence of in the literature. These definitions were presented in
advertising executional elements evoking-nature only different conceptual perspectives, due to the multidis-
generates higher perceptions of the brand’s greenness ciplinary characteristic of the object of study. A limi-
among non-expert consumers, expert consumers were tation of the work found in its development was the
not significantly affected. keywords used in the search strings. Terms like ‘CSR-
Wash’, ‘Decoupling’ and ‘Selective Disclosure’ may
contribute to the number of articles selected in the sys-
Conclusion
tematic review.
In this paper, we have discussed the main concepts of
To achieve the second objective, a categorization of
greenwashing and its main types that we found present
the phenomenon was developed. This classification of
in the literature. Due to its multidisciplinary character-
greenwashing is the main academic contribution of
istic, no general definition of greenwashing is accepted
to recent day. The phenomenon has been discussed by

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 de Freitas Netto et al. Environ Sci Eur (2020) 32:19 Page 11 of 12

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