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Greenwashing – Consumer Trust and Deceptive Corporate Practices

Greenwashing refers to deceptive business practices that make a company's actions and environmental impact appear more sustainable than they actually are. This issue has been explored by Angelika Kantor, a PhD candidate at the Department of Consumer Research at the University of Economics in Katowice. Her publication on this topic is a chapter in the monograph "Trust, Media and the Economy Routledge", published by Taylor & Francis Group.

Consumers and investors are increasingly focused on supporting initiatives that are truly sustainable and free from negative environmental impact. Growing awareness, attentiveness, and empathy encourage large corporations to develop CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) strategies. In response, companies implement these practices and communicate their environmentally friendly efforts. However, these declarations do not always translate into meaningful contributions to a better future. Some businesses claim to take pro-environmental actions without actually doing so, deliberately misleading stakeholders. As Kantor's article points out, the small environmental efforts some companies make pale in comparison to the harmful practices they have long engaged in.

Greenwashing occurs when there is a discrepancy between a company’s declarations and its actual practices. This often involves an overload of misleading information designed to divert attention from harmful activities, concealing certain facts, shifting responsibility onto consumers, or using green marketing tactics. As the author highlights, Coca-Cola serves as a prime example of such practices. The brand has been labeled the "Top Global Polluter," a title it received along with nine other brands in the 2020 Break Free From Plastic report. On its website, Coca-Cola states, "Currently, all Coca-Cola bottles in Poland are 100% recyclable." However, according to the Plastics Europe report "Plastics in a Circular Economy – Analysis of the Situation in Europe," only 8.7% of all recyclable waste in Europe is actually recycled. What happens to the remaining 91.3%? A significant portion is exported to non-EU countries such as Turkey, India, and Egypt, where it ends up in forests, landfills, or floating in the oceans.

As the author emphasizes, greenwashing is a highly complex issue. There are various ways in which companies "greenwash" reality, and the phenomenon leads to several negative consequences, including the erosion of consumer trust in corporate practices. Angelika Kantor examines this problem and proposes concrete solutions that, if implemented, could help reduce the scale of environmental deception.

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