Green Claims and Grey Areas: A Diagnostic Tool for Assessing Corporate Environmental Misrepresentation
Published in Sustainability and Law, Politics & International Studies
Explore the Research
Green claims and grey areas: a diagnostic tool for assessing corporate environmental misrepresentation
Corporate greenwashing is no longer a marginal concern. It now sits at the center of a public debate about sustainability, corporate accountability, and the credibility of environmental promises. At a time when businesses increasingly present themselves as champions of climate responsibility, an urgent question arises: how do we distinguish genuine environmental commitment from polished corporate image-making? My newly published article, Green Claims and Grey Areas: A Diagnostic Tool for Assessing Corporate Environmental Misrepresentation, addresses this question by developing and validating a systematic framework for identifying how firms may misrepresent their environmental conduct through misleading claims, selective disclosure practices, and ESG metric manipulation. The article shows why this issue matters far beyond academic discussion. Exaggerated or strategically framed environmental claims weaken trust, compromise transparency, and mislead investors, regulators, consumers, and the wider society. In this sense, greenwashing is not simply a communications problem. It is a governance problem with serious implications for how sustainability is understood, assessed, and acted upon. This study therefore offers a timely contribution to current debates by providing a more rigorous basis for assessing the credibility of corporate environmental communication and for strengthening accountability in sustainability reporting.
Follow the Topic
What are SDG Topics?
An introduction to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Topics and their role in highlighting sustainable development research.
Continue reading announcement
Please sign in or register for FREE
If you are a registered user on Research Communities by Springer Nature, please sign in