​

Faking Green: Unmasking Environmental Deception, Hiding Behind False Sustainability

 

Many companies which are called fraudulent greenwashers aim to gain both the social and financial benefits of being sustainable organizations, so they pretend like sustainable businesses, and claim that they have sustainable process, serve or products without doing much of actual effort. Vanessa Burbano suggested that Greenwashing is a conflict between reported and real behavior.  According to an international environmental law charity ClientEarth which has taken several large businesses to court on accusation of greenwashing which is described “… where a company uses advertising and public messaging to try to appear to be environmentally green and follow sustainable practices- greener than it really is. It’s also a technique certain companies use to distract consumers from the fact that their business model and activities do a lot of environmental harm and damage.” 

 

Sustainability Beyond Illusion: It’s What You Do, Not What You Say 

 

If the companies do not stay away from getting into hot water over climate change claims, it has to live through harsh conditions. A fraudulent practice which is called “greenwashing” can lead to corporate failure. In other words, when it is explored that the company’s activities do not respect society’s moral values, it will conclude as company’s failure. How can businesses get ahead of blame like this? Because from both ethical and legal perspectives, businesses have to ensure their words mirror their actions.  Many well-known businesses are blamed to do “greenwashing”. An accusation can seriously damage a brand. Avoiding bad reputation has significant importance in protecting the future of companies. Reputational issues, financial losses are some of the consequences stemming from such unethical behaviors, and additionally it results in the organization losing its social contract to operate described rights and responsibilities associated with sets of formal and informal agreements between societal and their sovereign government or other actor to boot. Tracking legitimacy is very important for the business to survive and avoid the corporate to collapse and it can be ensured by adjusting to the institutional setting. 

 

How does a company apply to the greenwashing road? There are considerable expectations that companies must address the changes which are required to achieve sustainability with the level of strategic business focus it necessitates in a way that shows care and conscientiousness. If it makes false claims about its commitment to sustainability, social responsibility, or ethics, it will be making greenwashing, and it can cause reputational damage, penalties, loss of social and legal license to operate or result in substantial financial losses and corporate failure. 

 

In the Age and the World Full of Greenwash: Be Both the Truth-seeker and the Voice of the Truth

 

Until very recently, activities associated with greenwashing and vague promises received little scrutiny, but the age is not changing, the age has changed. The pandemic forced us to mirror many challenging essentials of our society and planet.  As a clear consequence of this, auditing bodies, consumers, and investors do not accept disingenuous messaging around sustainability.

In view of the climate crisis, it is impossible for businesses that are under enormous pressure about their effects on climate not to be forced by customers to environmental footprint. We live in the era of social media and the connection between businesses and the society is more relevant than ever. Companies’ sustainability activities and efforts and communicating progress towards them in a transparent way are significantly changing. There is no longer room for greenwashing. Companies and executives are being forced both to articulate and to reckon their sustainability journeys and progress in new and more serious ways. Covering up a scandal can be more catastrophic than the scandal itself. Consequently, to restore the damage caused by businesses’ activities associated with greenwashing, they have to turn to public relations firms. 

 

As can be seen from the European Commission’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive “CSRD”, ESG reporting requirements are progressively transitioning from voluntary to mandatory, and in market-driven economies, trust is the eventual currency of achievement, and dependable info from credible sources boosts trust. So, we can give this as a good example of the intersection of the two: in June 2022, the Financial Times outlined “A German asset management corporation DWS which has about $1 trillion in assets and Deutsche Bank is raided by German authorities, because of greenwashing charges. An inquiry was initiated about WS’s deceptive argument in its 2020 annual report regarding claims that more than 50 percent of the group’s $900bn assets were invested using ESG criteria.” 

 

​