GREENWASHING: A PROPOSAL TO RESTRICT ITS SPREAD

David Markham, Anshuman Khare () and Terry Beckman
Additional contact information
David Markham: Faculty of Business, Athabasca University, St. Albert, Alberta, Canada
Anshuman Khare: Faculty of Business, Athabasca University, St. Albert, Alberta, Canada
Terry Beckman: Faculty of Business, Athabasca University, St. Albert, Alberta, Canada

Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), 2014, vol. 16, issue 04, 1-16

Abstract: Recent years have seen a rapid rise in the number of firms publicly touting the environmental merits of their products or their operational practices. This is driven by the changing societal concern and public discourse around environmental issues. What was once an infrequent conversation has emerged as a moral obligation. While the number of "green" products available in the market has grown, these conditions have also resulted in firms deliberately misleading consumers about their environmental performance or the environmental benefits of their products, a condition commonly known as "greenwashing."This paper will argue that the urgency to address our rapidly deteriorating environment requires that tangible steps be taken to control incidents of greenwashing. It examines the merits and drawbacks associated with government's taking an active role in the regulation of greenwashing and argues that the current regulatory instruments being used by governments to address greenwashing are not likely to be successful in addressing the problem. Finally, the paper proposes a new regulatory instrument where governments and interested stakeholders work together to collect and disseminate information on sustainable business practices and the impact of goods and service production on the environment.

Keywords: Sustainability; greenwashing; green products; environmental benefits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1464333214500306
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:jeapmx:v:16:y:2014:i:04:n:s1464333214500306

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S1464333214500306

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM) is currently edited by Thomas Fischer

More articles in Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().