How should a system be built to verify the level of “greenness” of companies and enterprises in order to effectively systemically limit the development of greenwashing?
How should a system be built to verify the level of “greenness” of companies and enterprises, the level of factually inconsistent portrayal in the media and advertising campaigns carried out by business entities as green, pursuing sustainable development goals, respecting norms and standards for the protection of the climate, biosphere and environment, in order to effectively systemically limit the development of greenwashing?
As the level of pro-climate and pro-environmental awareness of citizens increases, so does the number of companies and enterprises that portray themselves in advertising campaigns as business entities pursuing specific sustainable development goals, in line with the trends of green transformation of the economy. To a large extent, these issues are highly correlated with each other and act in feedbacks to each other. On the one hand, the growing level of pro-climate and pro-environmental awareness of citizens motivates business entities to add to their missions and development strategies the issue of achieving sustainable development goals, undertaking business ventures that are part of the green transformation of the economy. On the other hand, in a situation where more and more companies, enterprises, financial and public institutions are presenting themselves as green business entities presenting in various brand promotion activities and advertising campaigns informing about the company's product and/or service offerings also descriptions and characteristics of green business ventures, presenting the business entity's implementation of certain sustainable development goals and green investment projects undertaken, where they develop their own energy sources based on renewable and emission-free energy sources, building wastewater treatment plants so as not to generate waste that pollutes the environment, developing and improving waste segregation and recycling techniques, carrying out economic projects involving environmental reclamation and restoration in post-industrially degraded areas, reforestation of industrially exploited areas and implementation of other green economic activities that are part of the processes of green transformation of the economy. however, as an institutional system for assessing the level of “greenness” of the aforementioned activities presented as realizing the goals of sustainable development and/or being part of pro-climate, pro-environmental, pro-ecological economic ventures has still not been built, so a significant number of business entities are overemphasizing the issue of presenting themselves in the framework of company brand promotion campaigns as green entities implementing ventures that are part of the green transformation of the economy. In recent years, there has been a strong increase in the number of companies, enterprises and financial institutions that portray themselves as green economic entities pursuing certain goals, including pro-environmental and pro-climate sustainability goals, while the scale of real activities in this regard is negligible or almost nonexistent. In addition, the introduction of mandatory expanded, non-financial ESG reporting motivates business entities to pursue green business ventures, which are often not green in reality. This is because a system of verification of the level of “greenness” of companies and enterprises, the level of factually inconsistent portrayal in the media and advertising campaigns carried out by business entities as green, pursuing sustainable development goals, respecting norms and standards for the protection of the climate, biosphere and environment, has still not been built to effectively systemically reduce the development of greenwashing, i.e. the so-called “eco-cheating”, eco-lying.
I am conducting research on this issue. I have included the conclusions of my research in the following article:
Article IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY DEVE...
I invite you to discuss this important topic for the future of the planet's biosphere and climate.
In view of the above, I address the following question to the esteemed community of scientists and researchers:
How should a system be built to verify the level of “greenness” of companies and enterprises, the level of factually inconsistent portrayal in the media and advertising campaigns conducted by business entities as green, pursuing the goals of sustainable development, respecting norms and standards for the protection of the climate, biosphere and environment, in order to effectively systemically limit the development of greenwashing?
How should the system of verification of the level of “greenness” of companies and enterprises be built in order to effectively systemically limit the development of greenwashing?
What do you think about this topic?
What is your opinion on this issue?
Please answer,
I invite everyone to join the discussion,
Thank you very much,
Best wishes,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
The above text is entirely my own work written by me on the basis of my research.
In writing this text, I did not use other sources or automatic text generation systems.
Copyright by Dariusz Prokopowicz
Dariusz Prokopowicz great topic!
"How should the system of verification of the level of “greenness” of companies and enterprises be built in order to effectively systemically limit the development of greenwashing?"
In the EU: Proposal for a
DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
on substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims (Green Claims Directive)
'Choice of the instrument: a Directive.'
and more info under 6.2.Requirements on substantiation of environmental claims https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM%3A2023%3A0166%3AFIN
Also views shared by various stakeholders in this recording https://www.europarl.europa.eu/rss/podcast/eprs-policy-podcast/mp3/2023/20231117-green-claims.mp3
Related as well: the role of advertisement agencies.
Did you see this report by Planet Tracker?
'Environmental Impact Analysis Reveals Advertising Agencies’ Silent Complicity'
https://planet-tracker.org/environmental-impact-analysis-reveals-advertising-agencies-silent-complicity/