Greenwashing: how companies and governments mislead society

Sumaúma explains how false and inflated advertising about “green” initiatives hurts the fight against climate change and other environmental threats

You know that detergent you see on the shelf with the word “eco” stamped on the package? Well, the chemical compounds in it can be extremely aggressive to Nature. And that “recyclable” paper cup? The inside is often covered in a layer of plastic. These are very common examples of greenwashing. 

Greenwashing is a shorthand term for the misleading strategies governments, companies and organizations adopt to convey a false or inflated idea of their efforts to reduce environmental impacts. 

It is a strategy of ideological appropriation:  the adoption of an environmental discourse about sustainable practices within a capitalist rationale – the same rationale that has pushed us to the edge of the climate crisis cliff. Greenwashing can also make money.  

Greenwashing can be related to government actions or to products and services offered by companies. It can show up in marketing strategies where companies confuse or deceive consumers about their environmental commitments, or in reports from organizations and governments on their social and environmental performance and responsibilities, highlighting positive aspects and omitting negative ones. More recently, the proliferation of “net zero” commitments on greenhouse gas emissions has also been fertile ground for the practice of greenwashing, especially when companies are using carbon credits to say they are offsetting their emissions, yet they fail to mention that many of these projects are related to problems and violence in traditional communities.  

The term greenwashing was coined by American ecologist Jay Westerveld in 1986, in an article where he described a situation he had experienced three years earlier. During a 1983 trip to Fiji while he was still a student, Westerveld came across a hotel chain policy on towel reuse, in an initiative supposedly geared toward reducing environmental harm. What seemed like an initiative to raise guests’ awareness about the importance of lessening environmental impacts was actually targeted solely at lowering laundry costs, the researcher later found. 

Such strategies to manipulate environmental discourse gained popularity in the 1980s, but they had already been in effect for some time. One of the first notable cases was at US power company Westinghouse, back in the 1960s. A story in the Guardian recalls how the company had been the target of criticism from the anti-nuclear movement, because of the development and sale of nuclear energy systems to generate electricity. As a response, it published a series of newspaper and magazine ads using images of power plants sitting on the shores of pristine lakes, with a claim that they were building “odorless […] neat, clean, and safe” plants. The environmental effects of nuclear waste and the risk of environmental disasters were hidden to advance an environmentally-friendly discourse.

A lot of people will say this “green sheen” is a type of false advertising, but it goes much further: it doesn’t just hurt the consumer, it hurts the planet. 

In a decade seen as crucial for avoiding the worst climate change scenarios, this type of practice ends up representing one of the biggest obstacles to seeking a possible future, according to the United Nations. In the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, researchers said urgent action is needed by 2030 to cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half, while at the same time adapting the world’s society to the impacts. The longer there are companies, organizations or governments selling a false sense of progress in fighting the climate crisis, the further we all will be from real solutions. 

Greenwashing started with relatively simple advertising strategies to mislead consumers, but these strategies became more sophisticated as the climate crisis deepened. Today, there are countless terms and definitions for the different practices in greenwashing, which range from advertising sustainable products without any scientific basis, to issuing sustainability reports that highlight one characteristic of a product or company to camouflage other harmful social and environmental practices. There is also a related phenomenon of carbonwashing, where companies claim their products or services are “carbon zero,” “carbon neutral” or “net zero,” yet only one part of their production chain is free of CO2 or their emissions are merely offset through unapproved and/or unregulated mechanisms.

For some time, the Amazon has served as the backdrop for the greenwashing practices of companies and financial institutions that adopt an environmentally-responsible discourse while financing or promoting activities that accelerate deforestation, environmental degradation, and the violation of traditional communities’ rights. Two recent examples illustrate this contradiction. 

The first involves large international and national banks that, while boasting of their commitment to sustainable practices, continue to finance oil and fossil fuel companies that directly impact the forest. According to “Greenwashing in the Amazon,” a report produced by Stand.earth and the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin, institutions like Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Itaú Unibanco, Santander and Bank of America have invested billions of dollars in operations that are contributing to the advancement of the climate crisis and are compromising the forest. Although these companies say they follow strict environmental and social policies, the investigation found that, in practice, an average of 71% of the Amazon is not covered by effective climate risk management protocols or by guarantees of Indigenous peoples’ rights.

Another recent example comes from agribusiness. Cargill, a multinational and industry leader in Brazil, issued a tender in 2024 to fund social and environmental projects carried out by cooperatives, businesses and civil society organizations, under the guise of supporting initiatives that have a positive impact. Indigenous and Quilombola organizations and social movements denounced the initiative as a greenwashing strategy to cover up the negative impacts the company’s operations have in the Amazon and Cerrado. In a manifesto signed by over 50 organizations, the movements noted that while Cargill presents itself as an advocate for sustainability, it supports projects like the Ferrogrão, a 933-kilometer-long railway that could cut through the forest, affecting Indigenous Territories, conservation units, and isolated peoples. It is also frequently the subject of community and government reports of suspected failures to comply with legal frameworks, which the company denies. Those who signed the document see financing for small social and environmental projects being used to mask a predatory model of production, helping to build an image in the international market of a green and responsible company. The Cargill case is one of hundreds that show a more and more frequent reality: green discourse coexisting with practices that have a big environmental impact.