Consumers struggle to distinguish between genuine environmental claims made in advertisements and “greenwashed” ones that give a misleading impression of the climate-friendly credentials of a product or business, according a new study by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and Trinity College Dublin.
The study, which was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), used a controlled experiment to test the benefit of educating consumers about greenwashing tactics used by advertisers.
A nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults judged a series of ads that featured genuine or greenwashed environmental claims.
Half the participants, selected at random, learned about greenwashing tactics first and completed a quiz to test their ability to spot it.
The results showed that those who were trained to spot greenwashing were more confident in their ability to do so and were more suspicious of some greenwashed claims than the untrained control group. But the training also led to greater suspicion of genuine claims.
Greenwashing makes it difficult for genuinely sustainable businesses to compete against ones that mislead consumers about their environmental performance
— Dr Shane Timmons - ESRI’s Behavioural Research Unit
Consumers were less willing to purchase from brands they suspected of greenwashing, even if the environmental claim made by the brand was genuine, the study found.
The group who learned about greenwashing tactics also reported being more willing to engage in climate action, including using climate policies to inform their voting behaviour.
“Greenwashing makes it difficult for genuinely sustainable businesses to compete against ones that mislead consumers about their environmental performance,” said Dr Shane Timmons of the ESRI’s Behavioural Research Unit, who co-wrote the research paper.
“Educating consumers about greenwashing doesn’t appear to help, as they simply become more sceptical of all environmental claims. Instead, our results support recent EU directives that ban many forms of greenwashing, but these directives still need to be transposed into Irish law.”
Dr Eimear Cotter, director of the EPA’s Office of Evidence and Assessment, said greenwashing undermined efforts to support consumers to make environmentally friendly choices and “can lead to confusion and scepticism of genuine environmental claims among consumers”.
The insights from the research will help inform the design of effective policies to tackle greenwashing, Dr Cotter added.
Two EU directives on the Verifiability and Communication of Environmental Product Claims, known as the Green Claims Directive, and Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition, ban many forms of greenwashing, including generic claims without evidence for positive performance. They also require third-party verification of any sustainability labels.
[ Ireland set to miss national and EU emissions reduction targets by long wayOpens in new window ]
Both directives were adopted by the EU in early 2024 and the Government has two years to transpose them into Irish law.
The study was prompted by a European Commission analysis showing that more than half of environmental claims made on ads are vague, misleading or unfounded.
Published in 2014, the study found that three-quarters of products contained an environmental claim, often in the form of a logo. It pointed to “possible noncompliance” with EU legal requirements, with many of the analysed claims not meeting requirements of accuracy and clarity.
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