Avoid greenwashing and paint a better sustainability picture.

Increasingly, we are rightly seeing businesses being called out for greenwashing: portraying themselves as taking ESG and sustainability seriously when their actions show otherwise. In some obvious cases (cough oil & gas), it will be relatively easy to see through their cynical green claims, overspun facts and cherry-picked data. But what happens when a business has good intentions, seems legitimate and credible at the outset but is still unmasked as an environmental or social offender? 

Accidental greenwashing is relatively easy to fall into but can be extremely difficult to recover from. So, let's look at why you need to be vigilant on greenwashing, how it happens, and, most importantly, how to avoid it so you can be confident in how to engage people in your sustainability journey!

Why you need to be vigilant on greenwashing?

If a company is not living up to their claims about ethical and environmental practices, a consumer can likely find this out. Increasing regulatory requirements make it easier to hold businesses accountable. There are even organisations, like ClientEarth, who are actively shining a light on greenwashing claims by harnessing the power of the law to bring the worst offenders to justice. They detail their successes publicly and even when the corporate giants escape fines or any other punishment, the process often forces them to disclose documents, putting any shady behaviours into the public sphere.

This wealth of available information is empowering consumers, and this exposure is perhaps more damaging to a business than anything else. Consumers of all stripes will feel let down and manipulated. And winning back customer trust and repairing a tarnished reputation are notoriously difficult and nebulous tasks to achieve... or to quantify.

How does greenwashing happen?

Sometimes, like the fossil fuel industry’s repeated claims to be committed to global net zero programmes, the assertions are so outlandish that they can only be seen as a conscious attempt to fool consumers and manipulate their own reputation.

But I actually think most businesses are both well-meaning and well intentioned, as well as being ambitious and successful. There aren’t enough "wrong ‘uns” out there to cause the current deluge of greenwash.

To me, greenwashing comes down to a failure to think. Businesses inadvertently greenwash because they don't root their sustainability strategy, actions and efforts deeply in their specific business and business model. They don’t think about sustainability through the lens of what they’re all about, what their business exists for, or work out how they can build on that to really make a difference. Instead, they simply look at whether the initiative feels like a ‘good thing’ or is something they ‘like’.

But ‘good’ and ‘like’ are incredibly subjective. Not everyone is going to agree with you – some are even likely to come out with entirely the opposite view. People won’t just be convinced that something is good because the business thinks it’s good. Instead, they will ask themselves ‘why is this organisation doing this?’ And if they can’t find a substantive, relevant answer to that question they’ll call it for what it is: greenwash. A fancy marketing coat. And what was initially seen and meant as a ‘good’ thing will quickly turn out to be a ‘bad’ thing that hits that organisation’s reputation hard.

Greenwashing results from a lack of thinking. And luckily a lack of thinking is the easiest thing to change.

The power of thought

Treat sustainability like any other project or big piece of work. Think it through. Think about what you really do and where you do it from. Step back, see your business in full and know where your environmental and social issues and risks arise. Do your due diligence on your proposed actions. Be forensic in analysing your ‘case’ holistically, not just individually. Assess any proposals through the eyes of ‘what would a critical friend say?’, rather than ‘doesn’t this sound good?’. (An experienced GC is well placed to help with that sort of analysis.) 

Don’t see this as a marketing exercise. Make sure you’re talking honestly about the whole story – the good and the bad, the successes, failures and challenges (there will always be challenges with a task of this scale). And ensure your commitment to change comes from the top, and that your board can argue cogently and honestly why it’s focusing on the areas it is.

Ultimately, if your initiative doesn’t stack up in totality, then don’t put it forward. But if it does – if people can see that the initiative connects obviously and strongly with the business in question and uses that connection to make a substantive difference to the biggest environmental and social impacts your business has – then that initiative will feel carefully considered, deeply connected, and most importantly genuine. And they’ll take their paintbrush and bucket of greenwash to those who haven’t thought things through properly.