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What is the impact of greenwashing in the product quality, and how have companies been greenwashing everything from plastic bottles to diesel engines and store construction?
Greenwashing the product quality, labels, packaging and everything else. Corporate social responsibility initiatives and ESG reports are filled with promises to take better care of the environment, but how many of these claims are true?
And what is greenwashing, and why do companies seem to keep doing it?
In this article we’ll take a look at what greenwashing is, we’ll discuss the impact of greenwashing in the product quality, and we’ll take a look at some of the most notorious greenwashing examples of the past decade.
In a commercial sense, greenwashing can be defined as 1) deceiving consumers through marketing and communications by portraying a product as more environmentally friendly or more sustainable than it actually is, or 2) deceiving regulatory bodies by short-cuts and half measures in manufacturing to avoid financial repercussions without living up to the intended requirement of the regulation.
Some of the most common greenwashing practices include:
The more difficult types of greenwashing to identify are the ones that involve true statements and hidden trade offs.
One example of this could be Coca Cola’s “Plant Bottle” where the reduction in petroleum used in their plastic is a positive, because it can be recycled better. However, the fact that only XXX% of bottles are recycled were hidden away in Coca Cola’s communication on the subject.
Another example is IKEA’s 2019 opening of the “most sustainable store” in Greenwich.
The new store’s BREEAM rating of ‘Outstanding’ isn’t a lie, but the trade-off was still hidden, albeit in a shallow grave.
The problem was that IKEA had to demolish the UK's previously most sustainable supermarket to build the sustainable wonder. The Sainsbury’s that was knocked down was the first supermarket to achieve an excellent BREEAM Sustainability Rating.
Adding insult to injury, the building only managed a 17 year life-span before it was knocked down. As a rule of thumb, the energy needed to construct and demolish a building is around 30 per cent of what is required to run it for 50 years.
So, IKEA’s claims that “the building has sustainability built into its DNA” are more greenwashing than anything else. The building itself carries an immense environmental debt, not just from the construction of their own building, but from the construction of the building they demolished as well. Something that likely wasn’t taken into account during the BREEAM rating.
When it comes to greenwashing and product quality we first need to acknowledge that there are two main reasons why companies engage in greenwashing; marketing and regulatory reporting.
While both look the same, the impact greenwashing will have on product quality, if any, will often be different.
If we start by looking at greenwashing in marketing, the goal is for the product to give a better impression and increase sales. And while sustainability is not a measure of quality in the classical sense of quality and durability, many consumers equate sustainability and eco-friendlyness with high quality.
An example of this could be cheap products like the ones often found on TEMU or Alibaba, that are marketed as sustainable. In this case the greenwashing doesn’t impact the quality of the product, but in the eyes of the consumer fake sustainability claims can end up very close to fake claims of quality.
When we look at greenwashing in the context of regulatory reporting, there’s actually reason to believe that greenwashing does impact product quality. In the paper “Environmental regulation and firm product quality improvement: How does the greenwashing response” published in the International Review of Financial Analysis, D. Zhang demonstrates how environmental regulations and reporting has a significant negative impact on product quality as especially heavy-pollution enterprises engage in greenwashing.
Whether we’re looking at greenwashing product labels or in the manufacturing process, or whether we’re looking at greenwashing in retail or we focus on global giants, there is no shortage of examples when it comes to greenwashing products.
On this list we’ve collected a few different examples of greenwashing.
The now infamous scandal, which has since been dubbed “Dieselgate”, started in 2015, when the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice of violation of the Clean Air Act against Volkswagen.
The German car brand was revealed attempting to cheat emissions tests by using a piece of software in their engines that would detect when they were being tested, and only then activate emissions controls to improve test results and make sure the engines met regulatory standards.
The legal conclusion of the case involved a billion dollar civil settlement in the United States, admission of guilt in a criminal case followed by a billion dollar fine, along with both government and civil action in the EU as well.
As of June 2020, Dieselgate had ended up costing the German car manufacturer $33.3 billion in fines, penalties, settlements and buyback costs.
In a time where both brands and retailers are talking about sustainable packaging and packaging waste regulation the discussion on what makes packaging sustainable is a very interesting one.
Essentially, everyone wants an answer to the question; is there a way to make packaging more sustainable?
It sure seems so.
In 2009 Coca Cola introduced what they called the world’s first fully recyclable plastic bottle. Their Plant BottleTM, which they’ve been kind enough to share the technology for with other companies, replaces up to 30% of the petroleum used to make a plastic bottle with material from sugar canes and other plants.
And contrary to an example like Dieselgate there is truth to their claim. The Plant BottleTM is made from less petroleum than ordinary bottles.
But there’s an issue when it comes to using this change as a green claim, and that’s the lack of documentation around the environmental impact of bio-based products.
And when you’re the world’s number one plastic polluter (even a decade later), and when you use it to market your product as green, sustainable, and eco-friendly, without any documentation, it’s not a sustainable initiative. It’s greenwashing your packaging and it’s greenwashing product labels.
And that’s exactly what multiple agencies have ruled.
In 2013 the Danish Consumer Ombudsman sided against Coca Cola, stating that the plant bottle is one of the worst examples of greenwashing we’ve seen in Denmark.
In 2024 the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruling means that Coca Cola is now facing a greenwashing lawsuit from Earth Island Institute.
And in 2025, following an external alert from the European Consumer Organization (BEUC), Coca Cola has committed to a number of improvements to their packaging to avoid greenwashing their packaging.
H&M has a long-standing tradition of using green and sustainable initiatives as a part of their communications and marketing strategy.
From international recycling schemes under slogans like ‘Let’s close the loop’, where they offered discount coupons to customers who dropped off unwanted clothing at the store so it could be recycled properly, to launching its own line of green clothing complete with a green-colored label to really sell the point.
Their commitment to sustainable business practices seems to only be rivaled by the number of greenwashing cases and exposés against the fast fashion retailer.
In 2019 the Norwegian Customer Authority accused H&M for misleading customers with the “Conscious Collection” which was marketed as sustainable, green and eco friendly.
"Based on the Norwegian website of H&M we found that the information given regarding sustainability was not sufficient, especially given that the Conscious Collection is advertised as a collection with environmental benefits."
In 2023 the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet (The Evening Post) was able to reveal what actually happened with the clothes H&M collected and ‘recycled’.
Armed with 10 GPS trackers attached to clothing donated to H&M’s recycling program, two Swedish journalists proved that most of the clothing recycled by the fast fashion retailer actually ends up as garbage in third world countries, adding to environmental problems instead of solving them.
The Swedish furniture manufacturer has often been highlighted as a beacon of corporate responsibility and sustainable business practices. But in June 2020 London-based Earthsight concluded a year-long investigation by revealing that IKEA had sourced lumber from companies logging in protected Siberian forests.
The supplier of the ill-gotten timber was a number of companies owned by Russian Evgeny Bakurov, who had managed to obtain a certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a global scheme for sustainable wood products, which is how IKEA ended up with the non-sustainable timber.
As a result, Earthsight stated that they hold the FSC “largely responsible for the logging abuses [which] linked to Ikea and other retailers [...] They rely on the green label and its competitor PEFC to ensure their supplies are sustainable and legally sourced.”
While IKEA denied any wrongdoing, they announced a temporary ban on sanitary felled wood from Siberia and the Russian Far East, insisting that Bakurov’s wood was legally harvested.
Although the blame for this incident cannot be placed squarely on IKEA it does prove an excellent example of how even proper certifications can be used to greenwash environmentally dubious practices.
The question of why retailers are more vulnerable to greenwashing than brands and manufacturers has to do with control as well as the number of stakeholders with a financial interest in a product’s performance.
A case like Volkswagen’s “Dieselgate” placing blame isn’t too difficult. The Volkswagen company knowingly deceived consumers and regulators alike by programming their engines to change behaviour during test results.
The company did something wrong, they received the fines, and they take the reputational hit.
But when it comes to greenwashing in the retail industry the picture is often a lot more muddy, and the same goes for the fallout.
While environmental regulations, like the PPWC and EPR, put the responsibility on the producer and not the retailer, greenwashing is still a business risk for the retailers themselves.
If we look at IKEA’s Siberian timber it’s already a lot more muddy. And IKEA even had control over the production. The problem in this case is that the FSC gave a certification to the companies logging protected lumber.
So, while IKEA didn’t face litigation as a result of the timber, and they might very well have been unaware of the issue and acting in good faith, the reputational damage is something they’ve had to deal with afterwards.
And for full blooded retailers it’s not just a supplier greenwashing materials, or products or the FSC giving out a certification when they shouldn’t have, they need to be aware of.
Knowing that every product on their shelves lives up to regulatory standards and being able to detect false environmental claims on product labels and in promotional material becomes an essential part of mitigating risk.
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