Consumers find it hard to distinguish between 'greenwashing' and sustainable brands

Study found when consumers were trained to spot greenwashing claims — when marketing uses spin to convince the public their product or service is more environmentally friendly than it is — it led to greater suspicion of claims that were genuine.

Consumers struggle to tell the difference between adverts that make genuine claims about being environmentally friendly and ones that are “ greenwashing” to mislead them, a new study has found.

The joint study by the ESRI and Trinity College Dublin, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, found when consumers were trained to spot greenwashing claims — when marketing uses spin to convince the public their product or service is more environmentally friendly than it is — it led to greater suspicion of claims that were genuine.

It led the researchers to conclude genuinely sustainable brands that consumers may not already be familiar with may struggle to convey this authentic message to them.

“Greenwashing makes it difficult for genuinely sustainable businesses to compete against ones that mislead consumers about their environmental performance,” Dr Shane Timmons, from the ESRI’s Behavioural Research Unit, said.

“Educating consumers about greenwashing doesn’t appear to help, as they simply become more sceptical of all environmental claims. Instead, our results support recent EU Directives that ban many forms of greenwashing, but these directives still need to be transposed into Irish law.” 

In the study, 2,000 adults took part in an online experiment. Just under 1,000 were shown a series of infographics that explained different types of greenwashing and completed a quiz to identify greenwashing in a series of product descriptions.

A control group of the same size were not shown this infographic but were asked to read a short news article about climate change.

They were then shown six real advertisements, three of which had genuine environmental claims and three which were examples of greenwashing. They were then asked their opinion of these adverts.

At the end of the study, they reported their likelihood of engaging in different pro-environmental behaviours such as eating less meat, and their confidence in their ability to identify greenwashing.

The ESRI said it led to “mixed results”. Those trained to spot greenwashing were more confident in their ability to do so. They were also more suspicious of some greenwashed claims than the control group, but this training also led to greater suspicion of genuine claims.

“The experiment also revealed that consumers were less willing to purchase from brands they suspected of greenwashing, even if the environmental claim made by the brand was genuine,” it said.

“Those who learned about greenwashing tactics reported being more willing to engage in climate action, including using climate policies to inform their voting behaviour.” 

The researchers said learning about the specifics of greenwashing may have “elicited outrage” among participants, who were then motivated to take collective action against climate change.

However, it said it also may have decreased trust that private companies will make the necessary changes to reduce environmental damage, and then heighten the perceived need for individuals to make greater changes instead.