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Uma prática de marketing em que uma empresa apresenta informações enganosas ou exageradas sobre seus produtos, políticas ou atividades para parecer mais ambientalmente responsável do que realmente é. Esta prática visa capitalizar a crescente demanda dos consumidores por produtos e empresas sustentáveis, sem fazer mudanças significativas ou necessárias para melhorar a sustentabilidade ambiental real das operações da empresa.

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A empresa foi criticada por um vídeo apresentado durante o lançamento do iPhone 15, onde a atriz Octavia Spencer, interpretando a Mãe Natureza, elogiava os esforços da Apple em sustentabilidade. No entanto, críticos apontaram a obsolescência programada de seus produtos e questões trabalhistas em sua cadeia de suprimentos, sugerindo que as alegações de sustentabilidade eram exageradas e omitiam aspectos negativos importantes​

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A empresa japonesa foi criticada por confundir os consumidores ao promover seus veículos híbridos como se fossem elétricos, além de focar em soluções futuras irrealistas como baterias de estado sólido, o que poderia atrasar a adoção de veículos elétricos de verdade

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2023 was the year that policymakers in Asia Pacific took cues from regulators in the West and made tentative steps to police greenwashing.

South Korea became the first Asian country to fine companies for making exaggerated green claims in February, following a law suit against an energy major that claimed it could produce "carbon dioxide-free" natural gas. But the maximum fine for greenwashing firms in Korea is US$2,300, prompting questions on whether it makes an impact at all.

Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore are among the Asian countries have released guidelines for how the finance sector can avoid greenwashing in environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures.

Singapore is considering using technology - artificial intelligence - to weed out iffy claims, and Australia's advertising watchdog is tightening its environmental claims code after a study found a jump in misleading marketing campaigns.

Asia's public relations industry association finally produced guidelines for brands on how to communicate sustainability credibly in October, more than a year after announcing it would. Singapore's advertising watchdog became the first in Asia to call an advertisement out for greenwashing in December.

Japan-based academic Kim Schumacher, who coined the term "competence greenwashing" to describe people or companies that embellish their green credentials to land a new job or contract, told Eco-Business Podcast that there have been fewer law suits and regulations that hold corporations' feet to the flame for greenwashing in Asia partly of the cultural tendency to avoid conflict.

Meanwhile, law suits against brands accused of trumping up their green credentials in the West gained momentum, and regulators started to turn the screw on companies guilty of greenwash. The European Union moved to ban the term "carbon neutral" and outlaw climate claims based purely on carbon offsetting.

At the COP28 summit, activist group Clean Creatives launched a report highlighting how advertising and public relations agencies had a part to play in the rebranding strategy of the United Arab Emirates to present itself as a leader in renewable energy in the lead-up to the climate talks. It identified 18 agencies that worked for COP28, the UAE presidency, Masdar and UAE's state-owned oil company Adnoc from 2021 to 2023, and among them 10 agencies that "double dealed" and worked simultaneously for the COP28 presidency and on fossil fuel contracts.

Though some brands retreated into their shells and stopped communicating their sustainability credentials for fear of getting accused of greenwashing - a phenomenon known as greenhushing - there were more cases of brands getting called out for greenwashing in 2023 than the previous year, when 18 cases were highlighted - up from 11 in 2021 and eight in 2020, according to Eco-Business' reporting on the issue.

Eco-Business casts a critical eye over the 22 times brands made green claims in 2023 that did not appear to pass the credibility test.

Apple: Sustainability report cherry-picking blessed by Mother Earth

September's curtain-raiser event for the iPhone 15 was interluded with a video in which Mother Earth, played by Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer, critiqued but ultimately blessed Apple's green credentials. Some praised the five-minute film for injecting a welcome dose of storytelling into the drab world of sustainability reporting, and were impressed by Apple's track record on clean energy, reforestation, soil protection and plastic reduction. Others pointed out that Apple's status update - like so many sustainability reports - cherry-picked environmental wins and glossed over the rest.

"Then stop making new phones every year. Make phones upgradable," an X user tweeted in response to Apple CEO Tim Cook's post of the video, referring to the concept of planned obsolence that critics say Apple pioneered. "You mass-produce your products in China, one of the world's biggest polluters," wrote another.

In an open letter, sustainability consultants Rajul Priyadarshini and Emma Bluck pointed to widely reported human rights and labour issues in Apple's supply chain, which were not mentioned in the video, and the fact that Apple used the video as a sales pitch - to promote its first "carbon neutral" watch.

World Coal Association: "Sustainable" makeover

When the World Coal Association rebranded to "FutureCoal: The Global Alliance for Sustainable Coal" in November, observers wondered if an April Fool's joke had landed five months early. How "sustainable" can the single biggest cause of man-made climate change be? FutureCoal argued in its launch statement that for too long the coal sector had allowed "anti-coal sentiment to dominate and fragment us, which has resulted in a lowering of the global coal IQ." By "coal IQ", it meant the general level of understanding of coal's contribution to society, and how abatement technologies can reduce pollution from burning the black stuff.

Bitasta Roy Mehta, a practitioner in the human resources sector, said the audacity of labelling coal as green was almost amusing. "What next? Coca-Cola as a health drink?" With "sustainable coal", everything now makes sense. It is about the sustainability of production that petro-associations at COP28 will be discussing," pointing to the fossil fuels lobbying army present at the climate talks in Dubai.

Indonesia's palm oil agency: Plantations are more climate-friendly than rainforests

Speaking to an audience of farmers and Indigenous peoples at an event in August, a senior executive for Indonesia's Palm Oil Fund Management Agency, the government's palm oil finance agency, suggested that the crop is a more powerful carbon sink than the natural forests that it has replaced. Experts dismissed the claim as "goofy" and "criminally misleading". The presentation was made as the Indonesian government was locking horns with the European Union over a deforestation law that makes forest-risk commodities such as oil palm, of which Indonesia's is the world's biggest producer, trickier to export.

Toyota: EV stalling

Japan's largest company seemed to have turn over a new leaf and embrace the vehicles electrification era earlier this year when it replaced its chief executive with a more pro-EV boss. New CEO Koji Sato has made some efforts to boost EV production, and Toyota has pumped US$8 billion into a new battery plant in the US. But critics say the automaker, in its marketing, is up to its "old tricks". Toyota often confuses hybrid vehicles, which run entirely on petrol and derive no energy from non-polluting sources - with electric vehicles. The company also seems preoccupied by what critics suspect are unrealistic solutions, such as solid-state EV batteries, which they say will only push EV adoption timelines back.

Lufthansa: Planetary protection posturing

An advertising campaign for Lufthansa was banned in the United Kingdom for making misleading claims about the German airline's efforts to protect the planet. Britain's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said there were no commercially viable technologies in the aviation industry which would substantiate Lufthansa's claim that it was protecting the world's future.

In its defence, Lufthansa - which has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050 and half its emissions by 2030 - said the tagline was "open to interpretation" and argued that consumers would not see it as an "absolute promise" to protect the planet or that its planes did not cause harm. The ASA said brands in high carbon emitting sectors shouldn't make claims that give consumers a false impression about plans they can't substantiate.

Austrian Airlines: "Climate-friendly" aviation

In a bad year for the Lufthansa group's green credentials, the company's Austrian subsidiary was found guilty of greenwashing by a court in Korneuburg for leading consumers to believe that by using sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), "climate-friendly" air travel was now possible. The court reasoned that SAF still emits CO2 when burned and are blended with fossil fuels. Austrian Airlines promised to provide "clearer" information in future on the use of "sustainable" fuels. The ruling did not include any financial penalties.

S.E.A Aquarium: Can it say it is an ocean steward if dolphins are still kept captive?

An educational promotion to attract parents and their children to visit Singapore's Southeast Asia Aquarium to learn about ocean conservation in celebration of World Oceans Day omitted the fact that the tourist attraction houses more than 20 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins that were caught from the wild. The irony was not lost on animal welfare groups, who said that letting these highly intelligent mammals go would be the best way to educate kids about responsible ocean stewardship.

Petronas, Shell and Repsol: Only talk about renewables

"Chances are, you're going to need to add some balance to your ads," said Guy Parker, chief executive of the UK's Advertising Standards Authortiy (ASA) in an interview with Bloomberg Green. Parker was talking about ads by Malaysian oil giant Petronas and European majors Shell and Repsol whose campaigns were banned by the ASA for chest-beating about their investments in renewables without mentioning the extent of their businesses' overall climate impact. A September ad for Petronas claimed that it was "enriching lives for a sustainable future", but the ASA said the ad failed to mention the company's carbon emissions and gave the impression that Petronas was already having a positive environmental impact. Malaysian environmental group Rimbawatch has also questioned the accuracy of Petronas' reported emissions, pointing out that although the company said it was as yet unable to fully measure its emissions, they had in fact reported their Scope 3 in their 2022 integrated annual report based on the emissions of the companies they have stakes in.

Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association: '50% cleaner" than what?

An ad for Australia's petroleum lobby group was banned by the country's ad watchdog for claiming that natural gas is "50 per cent cleaner" without clearly specifying what it was cleaner than. In one of the ads, a worker wearing protective gear says: "As Australia shuts down coal, gas is picking up the load". Another worker later says, referring to gas: "It's 50 per cent cleaner, so together with renewables it gets emissions down." But this was problematic, complained law firm Environmental Defenders Office on behalf of non-profits Comms Declare and Lock the Gate. "It is a blanket and misleading statement that gas is 'green', when in truth the exploration, extraction, transport, processing and logistics of gas are very damaging to the environment and emit a lot of greenhouse gas - especially methane," read the complaint. Australia's ad watchdog upheld the complaint, marking a rare occasion in which an advertisement has been banned in Australia for making a misleading or unsubstantiated green claim.

Prism+: Airconditioners that save the planet

An airconditioner - one of the most energy-intensive home appliances - that can save the planet? Singapore-based consumer electronics brand ran a social media campaign in which influencer Xiaxue is called by a fictional president who asks for her help to "save Earth". In response, Xiaxue puts on winter clothing, sets the airconditioner to 23 degrees Celsius, and snuggles under a blanket. "Save Earth and electricity with 5 ticks energy saving," reads the caption. Professor Lawrence Loh, director of the Centre for Governance and Sustainability at National University of Singapore Business School, told Eco-Business that the advertisement was guilty of what a recent study found to be the most common form of greenwashing in Singapore - making vague claims unsupported by specific data sources. The video was called out by the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore - the first ad to be removed in Asia for greenwashing.

Etihad: not zero?

Activist group Flight Free Australia took issue with airline Etihad's claim in its advertising campaign in Australia that it had a credible path to net zero emissions by 2050. The group said in its complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that Etihad's ads, which ran on digital ad banners during an A-League football match in February 2022, conveyed the misleading impression that flying with the Abu Dhabi-based airline does not have much of an environmental impact and that it has plans and reasonable grounds for expecting it will reach the 2050 target. Etihad advertised the words "net zero emissions by 2050" next to its logo, and in another ad, claimed "Flying shouldn't cost the Earth."

Coca-Cola, Danone and Nestlé: Plastic promises?

The three consumer good giants were accused of making misleading claims about their single-use plastic water bottles being "100 per cent recycled" or "100 per cent recycled" by the European Consumer Organisation, a consumer rights group, backed by environmental nonprofits Client Earth and ECOS. The complaint to the European Commission argued that Danone, Coke and Nestlé's packaging is never made entirely of recycled materials, and their recylability depends on factors such as available waste management infrastructure - which in many Asian countries is lacking or absent. "A '100 per cent' recycling rate for bottles is technically not possible and, just because bottles are made with recycled plastic, does not mean they don't harm people and planet," said Rosa Pritchard, plastics lawyer at ClientEarth. In response, Nestlé said it was cutting use of plastic packaging, Danone said it was continuing to invest in recycling infrastructure, and Coca-Cola said its claims can be substantiated.

City Energy: Go "green" with gas

Singapore gas company City Energy ran a campaign with local mobile phone company M1 in September offering discounts on gas-powered heaters it said would help consumers "go green". The campaign informed consumers that they could heat water more sustainably and make cost savings with gas compared to electric storage water heaters, citing data from Singapore's National Environment Agency (NEA). Critics say that marketing a fossil fuel-based product as a green solution is misleading at a time when the world is trying to wean itself off dirty energy.

Nike: Plastic-based "Sustainability" collection

Nike was sued in a US district court for its "Sustainability" collection, 90% of which the law suit alleged were not "made with recycled fibers" as advertised and are made mostly of virgin synthetic materials that are known to be bad for the environment. The lawsuit pushed for Nike to launch a "corrective advertising campaign" and reimburse consumers who the case argued were duped into believing the company's products were green.

Saudi Aramco: Oil giant plants some mangrove trees

Among the deluge of suspiciously positive comments (astroturfing?) left beneath Aramco's LinkedIn campaign to promote its mangrove-planting efforts to its 4 million+ followers were posters who were less convinced by the world's largest oil company's green crusade. "Greenwashing?! Please Aramco, show your responsibility in exiting all your polluting activities and transforming these to sustainable and respectful businesses," wrote one poster. "Greenwashing while destroying the planet. 🤦🏻‍♂️ shame on you - and fire your PR team 🤢" wrote another.

TotalEnergies: Rebranding oil expansion

In May, a landmark greenwashing legal case against French oil and gas firm TotalEnergies was allowed to proceed. The complainants, nonprofits Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Notre Affaire a Tous, backed by ClientEarth, argue that TotalEnergies' "Reinvention" rebranding campaign violates European consumer law by misleading the public over what the company's plans really mean for the climate crisis. The main point of contention is that TotalEnergies' business plans include the expansion of fossil fuel production. The complaints also argue that the company "appears to be avoiding any significant emissions reductions all the way through to the end of the decade."

Shell: Renewables overclaiming?

The anglodutch oil major misleadingly overstated how much it is investing in clean energy, according to non-profit Global Witness, which lodged a complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in February. In Shell's annual report, the company stated that 12 per cent of its capital expenditure was channelled into a renewables division in 2021. The unit's webpage says it is investing in "wind, solar, electric vehicle charging, hydrogen, and more". Global Witness argued that 1.5 per cent of Shell's capital expenditure has been used to develop genuine renewables, such as solar and wind, but much of the rest of the division's resources were being pumped into fossil gas.

JBS: Meatless green bonds

The world's largest meat producer was on the receiving end of a complaint by environmental group Mighty Earth to SEC over the company's "misleading and fraudulent" green bonds. Mighty claimed that the US$3.2 billion in debt issuances or sustainabilty-linked bonds by JBS, that were tied to the company's stated goal to achieve net-zero by 2040, were suspect because its emissions have increased in recent years, and excluded Scope 3 supply chain emissions that comprise at least 97 per cent of its climate footprint.
Have we missed any? Almost certainly. Let us know by writing to news@eco-business.com. This story is part of our Year in Review series, which journals the stories that shaped the world of sustainability in 2023.

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22 brands called out for greenwashing in 2023

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Western courtrooms grew busier processing cases of greenwashing. In Asia, regulators and policymakers also started to think seriously about how to police exaggerated sustainability claims.

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A empresa de energia foi acusada de greenwashing por suas campanhas que promoviam sua divisão de energia limpa, enquanto ainda investia pesadamente em petróleo e gás. Um caso notório foi uma campanha em 2022, que afirmava que 78.000 lares no sudoeste do Reino Unido usavam eletricidade 100% renovável da Shell, sem esclarecer que essa energia vinha da rede nacional​

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You may have noticed the world becoming more eco-friendly in recent years - or at least, so it would appear. But if you've ever picked up a product because the packaging had the word "natural" on it or looked recycled, you may have been a victim of greenwashing.

Greenwashing is the practice of making brands appear more sustainable than they really are. It may involve cynical marketing ploys, misguided PR stunts, or simply changing the packaging of an existing product while continuing to use unsustainable ingredients or practices. It's a way for companies to appear like they care while also increasing their profit margins, as they're fully aware that eco-conscious people are willing to part with more money for sustainable products.

You might remember the controversy back in 2019 when McDonald's introduced paper straws that turned out to be non-recyclable. Aside from the questionable practice of cutting down trees to make disposable straws, this was a classic example of a corporate giant pretending to address an issue - in this case, plastic pollution - without actually doing anything.

Another cynical greenwashing move is to slap a green label on something to make it appear more sustainable or healthy, as Coca-Cola did with Coca-Cola Life - that with 6.6% sugar was far from a healthy drink. You'd probably get less Life if you drank a lot of it.

Unfortunately, greenwashing seems to be a trend that's here to stay. Companies are constantly coming up with new and brilliant ways to tell us lies. One of the best things people can do to protect themselves from these corporate cons is to get familiar with recent greenwashing examples. Awareness of the tricks they use can help you spot other talented greenwashers more easily, so let's take a look at some greenwashing lowlights from the last couple of years.

Greenwashing examples: recent stand-out cases

And before getting started, here's a graphic that explains ways to spot greenwashing outside of the cases shown here. Skip over to get straight to those examples though.

When greenwashing, companies project an eco-friendly image which is untrue. Sometimes the disguise is hard to detect but in other cases the veneer strays so far from the truth that you begin to question the sobriety of the PR & Marketing teams behind the greenwash. Did they really think that would work?

Innocent Drinks is a prime example of the implausible approach. The company is owned by Coca Cola, the worst plastic polluter in the world. The company also uses single-use plastic - which is terrible for the environment. Yet, someone, somewhere, thought it'd be a convincing idea to release twee TV cartoon adverts - featuring cute animals singing songs about recycling and fixing the planet. In an effort to connect the brand with these contradictory causes.

It's greenwashing, pure and simple. It'd be funny if it weren't for the dire consequences of all that plastic pollution.

Luckily, the ASA stepped in and banned the ludicrous ads after they were reported by Plastic Rebellion.

The global coffee capsule market is worth over $10billion and growing fast. But the mountain of discarded capsules remains difficult to recycle. The problem is you typically have to use specialist recycling services instead of local recycling bins.

As a case in point of how the recycling process can go badly wrong. Keurig led Canadian buyers to believe they could recycle their single-use plastic coffee pods by simply breaking open the top, emptying out the coffee, and throwing the empty carcass into recycling bins. Easy right?

Wrong. The capsules weren't accepted in most Canadian provinces, except for Quebec and British Columbia. And even then the instructions didn't go far enough. The City of Toronto had to revert 90 tonnes of plastic pods from recycling bins last year because of this kind of capsule carnage.

Keurig were fined $3million and ordered to change the misleading recycling claims on the packaging.

Pro tip: at Akepa we find a coffee from our attentive local baristas is way, way better than a mediocre coffee from a pod!

IKEA is the largest consumer of wood in the world, and its timber consumption has doubled in the last decade. An investigation by Earthsight found that IKEA has been making beechwood chairs using illegally sourced wood from the forests of Ukraine's Carpathian region, an area home to endangered beasts such as bears, lynxes, wolves, and bison.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about this case is that the illegal timber was certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. This oversight raises serious questions about the ethics and transparency of the FSC accreditation, which according to Earthsight, is not limited to Ukraine. They describe "rampant illegal logging" across the globe under the watchful eye of the FSC.

In spite of this, IKEA is among the best in the world in terms of its sustainability credentials, and FSC is considered the gold standard of forest accreditation.

The glass cleaner by SC Johnson claimed its bottles were made from 100% "ocean plastic". But before you start imagining intrepid teams of Windex employees out on boats salvaging plastic from the sea, let me stop you right there - because that's not what happened.

In fact, the plastic used to make the bottles was never in the ocean. It was pulled from plastic banks in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Haiti. This type of plastic is known as ocean-bound plastic because it would have otherwise ended up in the ocean.

But the problematic marketing doesn't end there. Windex also claims to be non-toxic, but a lawsuit was filed against SC Johnson in 2020, claiming that Windex products contain ingredients that are harmful to people, animals, and the environment.

5. H&M & Fast Fashion

The fast fashion industry is notorious for its environmental impact, so a level of greenwashing is to be expected there. But you might be surprised at the sheer amount of greenwash that was revealed in a 2021 report from the Changing Markets Foundation.

They looked at clothing from major high-street fashion brands to check the truthfulness of their sustainability claims and found 60% of claims overall were misleading. That's bad but H&M were found to be the worst offenders with a shocking 96% of their claims not holding up.

Put simply, virtually all of the Scandinavian Fashion Giant's claims were designed to trick people concerned about their environmental impact into buying.

So, the next time you consider buying from a major retailer like H&M because of imprecise green-tinged language like 'conscious', reconsider. The percentages say we're likely being lied to.

6. Hefty Recycling Bags

In May 2021, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Hefty Recycling Bags for the claim that its bags are "designed to handle all types of recyclables". According to the lawsuit, not only are Hefty bags not recyclable but they also contaminate waste that would otherwise have been recyclable. This means many items that could have been recycled end up in landfills instead.

Hefty bags are therefore no different from ordinary bin bags (and possibly even worse), and the lawsuit claims their misleading branding violates California's anti-greenwashing laws.

Mid-flight ads, misleading luggage charges, uncomfortable seats. These are just a few of the reasons why people dislike flying Ryanair - and now you can add another complaint to the list: greenwashing.

In early 2020, Ryanair audaciously announced itself to the British public as Europe's "lowest emissions airline". The claim was more or less made up and the Advertising Standards Authority promptly banned the ads.

It's a reminder that in environmentally sensitive sectors like aviation, you need to be extra careful as brands are all too eager to promote their green credentials to win more customers. Often the claims made just aren't true.

8. Quorn Foods Thai Wonder Grains

Quorn Foods advertised their new product, the Thai Wonder Grains lunch pot, as a way to address climate change. The advert claimed it "helps us reduce our carbon footprint", but what wasn't clear was who exactly they meant by "us".

It turns out they were referring to Quorn Foods, and not ordinary folk, who should avoid buying products that come in single-use plastic if they want to reduce their carbon footprint.

An inquiry by the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the ad was misleading. It also noted that since the product in question was new, it was impossible to determine whether it could reduce Quorn's carbon footprint.

Shell's got some balls. The company is responsible for around 1-2% of global CO2 emissions from its activities every year, while it continues to plough ahead and invest billions in oil and gas. And yet, despite this, their marketing team thought it appropriate to ask their followers on Twitter what they were "willing to change to help reduce emissions"? Really?

The poll attracted a modest 199 responses but still went viral due to the wave of vitriol it received in response, including high-profile rejoinders from the likes of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg.

This truly was one of greenwashing's most egregious examples. But only a few months later, some karma was served when a European court ordered Shell to reduce their carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. It's the first time that a private company has been ordered to reduce its emissions by a fixed amount with a defined time frame.

If that wasn't enough, here's another case that took a whole year before reaching its end. Are we surprised that Shell has engaged in greenwashing more than once? Not really.

In June 2022, the gas and oil giant launched a marketing campaign - featuring billboard posters, a YouTube ad, and a TV commercial - to promote their clean energy business in Bristol and the UK as a whole. The advertisements included misleadings claims about Shell's involvement in providing clean energy and e-vehicle charging stations. In the physical billboards, they actually dared to say, "In the South West 78,000 homes use 100% renewable electricity from Shell Energy." In reality, it's coming from the country's National Grid - a fact that was mentioned, albeit in much smaller writing.

Campaign group Adfree Cities filed a complaint to the ASA, arguing the commercials failed to give information on Shell's total environmental impact. The company does engage in clean energy, but their business resulted in CO2 emissions of 1.2 billion tonnes last year alone. Spending on gas and oil production is still expected to increase. Somehow, their net-zero target is set for 2050.

The campaign was finally banned a year after its launch, but doubts remain. Stricter regulation is needed to stop false messaging where fossil fuels are concerned.

What else is next, Shell?

10. Unilever

Unilever's cleaning brand Persil is one of the UK's most popular, with its washing-up liquid and dishwasher tablets used by millions of people each year. Many of those buyers are becoming concerned about the environment, so it's not surprising that Unilever has upped its efforts to appear eco-friendly. Nevertheless, Persil's 'Dirt is Good' TV ads have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority for unsubstantiated claims to be 'kinder on the planet'.

It's the kind of perfunctory statement that's not unusual from greenwashers, although in this case adorned by flimsy supporting scenes, such as a woman hashtagging #plantmoretrees on social media - and kids collecting plastic garbage from rivers and beaches. None of which explained why Persil was kinder on the planet.

The ASA took umbrage with the 'various strands' for being 'unclear'. Kinder on the planet than what exactly? Meteorites, maybe. But all considered it's fair to conclude that Persil, a typical laundry detergent, can't be all that kind on the planet.

What to learn from this? It's a case that shows if you are going make environmental claims these days then they need to be backed up. Someone tapping out an appropriate hashtag won't do at all.

According to lots of credible sources, the world's biggest banks are funding the climate crisis, mainly through investments with a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions - especially fossil fuels.

HSBC ranks 13th for the top banks financing fossil fuels in the UK. And still finances carbon-heavy industries like thermal coal mining. Yet, a bit of progress in greenwashing awareness was seen when 45 people complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that HSBC's advertisements were misleading. The offending ads were then banned but you can still see them in the image below.

HSBC argued that they're financing many of these industries to help them eventually transition to net zero, and it would be impractical to terminate funding. But while they highlighted their climate-friendly initiatives in their adverts, they failed to mention their considerable contribution to the climate crisis at the same time - an estimated $8.7 billion into new oil and gas in 2021.

It's an environmental nuance that was absent in the ads - and that, our friends, is greenwashing.

An irony of all this is that the day before the adverts were banned, HSBC were running workshops on how to spot and deal with greenwashing. They might need to take their own advice...

12. Delta Airlines

It's not a sin to enjoy travelling, to want to discover new places and visit worldly wonders. But let's be honest, it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make a trip carbon-neutral when flights are involved. Airplanes burning fossil fuels are one of the biggest contributors to CO2 emissions. So while engineers and scientists search for alternative solutions, it's nothing more than a reality we should be aware of and think twice about.

Which begs the question: exactly how delusional was Delta Air Lines when they thought it was okay to send this message in consumer-facing advertising?

Back in 2020, Delta pledged $1 billion - for a plan including carbon offset credits and supposed reduced use of jet fuel - to cut the emissions created by its business. It's generous, sure.

But now, California's residents are trying to sue the company over their statement, "the world's first carbon-neutral airline".

The case is proof of the power of marketing, showing how deceptive such a claim can be. Even when facts aren't there to back it up. But more than that, it speaks to the long overdue need for greenwashing regulation.

13. Active Super

What does it say when financial institutions are largely responsible for the obscene jump in greenwashing scandals this year? When money (and profit) is on the table, the truth always seems to be a bit more open to interpretation.

Active Super (AS), one of Australia's biggest superannuation funds, has been linked to sustainability and responsible investments for years. It was even named Money Magazine's ESG Super Fund Leader for 2022. This sparkling reputation is now being investigated by Australia's Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) for greenwashing.

AS said they would stop investments that were harmful to the environment and community, including tobacco manufacturing, oil tar sands and gambling. Russia, because of the invasion of Ukraine, was also supposed to be off-limits. Yet ASIC has found evidence that says otherwise: holdings in the very type of businesses that aren't people- or planet-friendly. And in Russian securities, too.

For now, Active Super has taken down the misleading claims from its website. But the case has only just begun, and we're keeping tabs on what's to come.

With a bit of luck, greenwashing's days will be numbered. People are getting tired of the same old corporate tricks and want to support brands that are truly sustainable. That's why at Akepa, we're committed to helping sustainable brands with their marketing so that consumers can make better, more informed, and more sustainable choices. Get in touch with us to learn more about our sustainable marketing agency.

greenwashing

Akepa | Digital marketing agency for sustainable brands

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Greenwashing examples for 2022 & 2023 | Worst products & brands

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Awareness of greenwashing tricks can help you spot other talented greenwashers more easily, so let's take a look at some recent examples.