Corporate Greenwashing

Nandini Krishnan

As awareness of sustainability and climate issues increase, corporations face pressure to be committed to the environment, or at least present themselves as such. With this, the term “greenwashing” has entered the cultural conversation— claims that certain companies sell themselves as being sustainable, while actually being quite damaging or lacking accountability when it comes to following up on the claims that they make. This becomes problematic, as consumers have a certain perception of a brand and so buy their products, while being unaware of the actual impact they have on the environment.

However, this marketing ploy is not unique to the 21st century. Companies like Chevron were accused of this practice in the 90’s, when their adverts projected images of people caring for animals and made claims about their commitment to care for the environment. This conveniently covered up the fact that as an oil company, they were spilling oil into areas for wildlife, and many of the practices they said they followed were in fact mandated by law. In recent years, this ‘greenwashing’ among companies has only become more and more popular.

H&M is one of these companies, and have been called out for ‘greenwashing’ on multiple occasions. Their “conscious” collection with green tags, seem to imply that they are more environmentally friendly, but they are incredibly ambiguous when it comes to explaining how they are more sustainable. Without this information, one can assume that the company might just be doing this to sell these products at a higher price level, with no real justification for this. In reality, H&M is considered a fast fashion company, and is a huge polluter.

Smaller companies, whose whole brand is built upon being sustainable, might also be participating in this. By analysing consumer behaviours, including food waste or carbon emissions, it has been found that zero waste stores may not actually be the more environmentally friendly option.

Experts who have spoken out about this issue say that it is important for consumers to stay vigilant. By looking at the websites of companies and researching the claims they make, we can see a clearer picture. Perry Wheeler, spokesperson for Greenpeace USA, says that buyers should look out for isolated words like ‘Eco-friendly’ or ‘sustainable’. He says: “while some of these terms can be legitimate, they’re often slapped onto products to convince buyers that they’re good for the environment. Always dig deeper into what the terms mean for a specific company”. Overall, the best way to make sure that we as consumers are buying sustainable products is to research them independently, rather than focusing on the narrative sold by the corporations.