Think tank warns consumers of ‘six shades of greenwash’

The term ‘greenwash’ is becoming an increasingly common element of climate and sustainability conversations. In a bid to make their products and services appear more environmentally-friendly than they are, brands and businesses will ‘greenwash’ their messaging to distract from the real impacts of their operations. (Learn more about greenwashing here).

Now, financial think tank Planet-Tracker has a released a report that indicates how greenwashing is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and that the practice now comprises at least six different tactics.

The report, ‘The Greenwashing Hydra’, identifies greencrowding, greenlighting, greenshifting, greenlabelling, greenrinsing and greenhushing as elements of greenwashing, with each designed to achieve different objectives.

According to Planet-Tracker:

• Greencrowding is where businesses ‘hide in a crowd’ to avoid scrutiny, and rely on safety in numbers.
• Greenlighting occurs when a company shines the spotlight on one or two particularly favourable environmental practices in order to draw attention away from damaging activities elsewhere.
• Greenshifting is when companies imply the consumer is at fault for climate challenges and shifts the blame onto them. A good example of this took place in November 2020, when oil company Shell ran a campaign asking people what they were prepared to do to tackle rising carbon emissions.
• Greenlabelling – perhaps the closest to the ‘traditional’ definition of greenwashing – is where companies use language that implies a product or service is green or sustainable, but closer inspection reveals their words are actually misleading.
• Greenrinsing refers to a company continually changing its environmental targets before they are achieved. As Planet-Tracker notes, PepsiCo has changed its recycling target three times over the last five years.
• Greenhushing refers to companies underreporting or hiding their sustainability credentials in order to avoid future scrutiny from consumers, investors and other stakeholders.  

John Willis, director of research at Planet Tracker said that as greenwashing becomes more common it’s important that consumers are aware of its advancing tactics. “Around the world, regulators are starting to confront the growing greenwashing issue. Addressing the problem will require those bodies leading the charge against greenwashing to establish a global equivalence in ESG reporting.”

He added: “By identifying the various iterations that greenwashing comes in, we hope to enable investors and consumers to be more mindful when making environmentally-led decisions.”

Further reading

Planet-Tracker’s report, The Greenwashing Hydra