On supermarket shelves, in the advertising of big brands and on social networks, “green” is sold as a virtue. Leaf-colored packaging, labels with words such as “eco”, “natural” or “biodegradable”, emotional campaigns in defense of the planet.
But behind this environmentally friendly image, there is often nothing but smoke. Greenwashing has become a common tactic in corporate marketing to capture an increasingly conscious market, albeit with deceptive tools.
“Deceiving the consumer is also polluting”
By: Gabriel E. Levy B.
In 1986, environmentalist Jay Westerveld coined the term greenwashing after observing how a hotel chain asked its customers to reuse towels “to save the environment,” while continuing to expand without any real sustainable policy.
The contradiction between message and action laid the foundations for what is now a global practice: pretending to be ecologically responsible without actually assuming it.
With the rise of environmentalism and public pressure for sustainable practices, many companies adopted environmental discourses more out of commercial convenience than conviction.
This is pointed out by the academic Michelle Thorne (2022), who warns that greenwashing not only alters consumers’ perception, but also directly interferes with the construction of sustainable economic models.
Thorne argues that green discourse without commitment produces a “symbolic pollution” that is as harmful as material pollution.
As sustainable development went from being an ethical aspiration to a normative and market requirement, greenwashing mutated from the anecdotal to the systemic.
A recent study published in Sustainability (Gatti et al., 2021) revealed that more than 40% of environmental product claims in Europe are misleading or lack verifiable evidence.
This phenomenon not only erodes public trust, but also jeopardizes genuine progress in the circular economy, energy transition, and responsible consumption.
“Green sells”: the make-up sustainability trap
In a market increasingly driven by environmental ethics, greenwashing acts as a dangerous distortion.
According to a report by the European Parliament (2020), nine out of ten consumers say they prefer sustainable products, but 42% do not trust brands’ eco-friendly claims.
This gap is explained by the proliferation of ambiguous and unsupported messages, such as “100% natural” or “planet-friendly”, which have no clear scientific or regulatory basis.
The problem lies not only in the lie, but in what it hides.
Many companies exhibit small symbolic actions, such as reducing the use of plastic bags or installing solar panels, while polluting practices continue in their production chain.
It is a phenomenon of “ecological makeup” that, in the words of the philosopher Bruno Latour, does not transform the structure but decorates it.
This has direct consequences on public policies. When decision-makers base their strategies on data manipulated by greenwashing campaigns, funds and attention are diverted away from true sustainable solutions.
Economist Sylvia Lorek warns that “greenwashing sabotages the ecological transition by passing off as transformation what is only cosmetic adjustment”.
The credibility of the entire sustainability ecosystem is compromised when real good practices compete with well-publicized fictions.
In 2023, the European Commission proposed a specific regulation to ban environmental claims without scientific backing.
The aim is to put an end to phrases such as “ecofriendly” or “carbon neutral” if it cannot be demonstrated with independent studies.
This measure responds to a phenomenon that not only deceives, but blocks progress towards a productive model compatible with the limits of the planet.
Circular economy in check
The circular economy is based on a simple and radical principle: not extract, use and discard, but keep materials in use for as long as possible, redesigning processes to eliminate waste and regenerate resources.
But when companies pretend to adopt these principles without actually doing so, they are sabotaging the model from within.
A frequent case is that of “symbolic recycling”. Brands that claim to manufacture products with recycled materials without specifying the percentage, their origin or the traceability of the process.
Or that advertise programs for the collection of plastic waste to then incinerate it instead of reintegrating it into the production chain. These types of practices, according to researcher Andreas Homburg (2021), create an illusion of circularity that reinforces the extractivist status quo.
In addition, greenwashing tends to simplify a complex process.
The idea is sold that buying a product with a green label is already a sustainable act, when the circular economy requires profound transformations in industrial design, reverse logistics, buyback systems and collaborative consumption.
Reducing circularity to a label or a campaign distorts its real challenges.
The most serious impact is the loss of confidence.
When consumers discover that they were misled by brands that appeared to be green, they become skeptical even of genuine initiatives.
This affects startups and companies truly committed to circularity, which must compete in a market saturated with “cardboard sustainability”.
This is the view of researcher Christina Tosi, who has studied how the excess of unverified environmental declarations reduces the willingness to pay for genuine circular products.
In short, greenwashing discredits the circular economy because it transforms a systemic project into a superficial marketing strategy.
And the more it normalizes, the further away the horizon is from a production compatible with natural cycles.
When appearance replaces change: some cases
The company H&M, one of the largest fast fashion chains in the world, launched its “Conscious Collection” line in 2019 promising “sustainable” clothing. However, research by Quartz revealed that many garments in that collection contained less sustainable materials than those in the conventional line.
In addition, the brand used a labeling system without verifiable criteria or external audits.
The result: deceived consumers and a false image of environmental commitment.
Something similar happened with Ryanair, which in 2020 proclaimed itself “the greenest airline in Europe” in its advertisements.
The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority forced the company to remove that claim as it was “misleading and without evidence.”
In reality, the airline’s low-cost model did not include serious plans to reduce emissions or investments in sustainable fuels.
In the technological field, Samsung was accused by Greenpeace in 2017 of promoting recycling campaigns while disposing of millions of defective devices without reusing their components.
The contradiction between speech and action reflected a typical greenwashing strategy: declaring green principles without changing fundamental practices.
Even the food sector has fallen into these practices. Brands such as Danone and Nestlé have been singled out for presenting their water bottles as “planet-friendly” by using a small percentage of recycled plastic, while their levels of plastic production continued to grow.
Green rhetoric, in these cases, conceals linear and highly polluting production dynamics.
These cases are not exceptional. They reflect an increasingly widespread trend in multiple industries: incorporating ecological language without assuming the structural commitments that it demands.
In conclusion, greenwashing is not just a questionable marketing strategy, but a direct threat to the advancement of real sustainability models such as the circular economy. By confusing consumers, eroding public trust, and diverting efforts toward fictitious solutions, it slows down the systemic change needed to confront the environmental crisis. Combating it does not only imply regulating advertising, but also transforming productive structures so that green ceases to be appearance and becomes substance.
References:
Gatti, L., Seele, P., & Rademacher, L. (2021). Green claims in advertising: misleading consumers? Sustainability, 13(2), 1178.
Thorne, M. (2022). The Symbolic Pollution of Greenwashing: Sustainability Discourses and Their Corporate Misuse. Environmental Communication, 16(3), 289–305.
Lorek, S. (2020). Sufficiency: A policy concept for sustainability transitions. Environmental Policy and Governance, 30(2), 95-106.
Homburg, A., & Schlegelmilch, B. B. (2021). The dark side of green: When environmental claims become deceptive. Journal of Business Ethics, 170(2), 191–210.
Tosi, C. (2019). Consumer perceptions of greenwashing and their impact on sustainable purchasing decisions. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 18(5), 412–422.
European Commission. (2020). New Consumer Agenda. Brussels: European Union.
Quartz. (2019). H&M’s Conscious Collection is not as sustainable as it seems. Retrieved from https://qz.com
Greenpeace. (2017). Samsung’s sustainability contradiction. Retrieved from https://www.greenpeace.org
ASA UK. (2020). Ryanair misleading advertising ruling. Retrieved from https://www.asa.org.uk
Danwatch. (2021). Plastic promises. Retrieved from https://danwatch.dk
Nestlé. (2020). Sustainability reports and greenwashing critiques. Retrieved from https://www.nestle.com/sustainability