I recently stumbled upon BSR’s latest report, “Understanding and Preventing Greenwash: A Business Guide,” cowritten with Futerra Sustainability Communications and published early August. This 40-pages report aims to help companies avoid the most common mistakes in communicating their green activities, i.e. greenwashing and window-dressing, by helping them understand where they fall in this “greenwash matrix,” and how they can move toward effective communications that align with the true impacts of their environmental initiatives.
I found this report highly informative and well-written, as it defines greenwashing in very simple terms (i.e. 10 signs of greenwash), explains why greenwashing is still growing (i.e. consumer demand for green, general absence of industry-wide standards for communicating environmental messages, etc.), and finally offers a pretty comprehensive greenwashing checklist.
The best of it though is that the report provides greenwash perspectives for each stakeholder, i.e. customers; regulatory, enforcing, and mediating bodies; NGOs; Media: journalists, bloggers, and media sellers.
In the end, “it all adds up” as shown in the graphic representation below. In determining whether a particular claim is greenwash or not, an individual may consider a wide range of factors, at the crossroads of brand reputation and corporate reputation, thus showing that both are more and more interlinked today:
Cool! I have downloaded the report and it is very informative, especially withthe analysis of the different stakeholders views. I find the checklist very useful. I am writing a thesis on this topic ( i m a marketing/comms student) – so thanks for the tip. Chris
Thanks Chris, glad this post was useful. Futerra has published very good reports in the past, including one with the UNEP on communicating sustainability – have a look. It might be helpful,
Cheers,
P.