greenwash

plural greenwashes

1. A false or misleading picture of environmental friendliness used to conceal or obscure damaging activities.

   People can be cynical about companies hiding behind green ideals, their radars finely tuned to detect a greenwash.

   2010, Meegan Jones, Sustainable Event Management: A Practical Guide, →ISBN, page 38

   1 more example

   Greta Thunberg has blasted politicians as hypocrites and international climate summits as empty words and greenwash.

   2020 November 9, Damian Carrington, “‘Hypocrites and greenwash’: Greta Thunberg blasts leaders over climate crisis”, in the Guardian, retrieved 09 Nov 2020

   Synonyms: greenwashing

present singular third person greenwashes · participle present greenwashing · participle past greenwashed · past greenwashed

1. intransitivetransitiveTo portray with a false or misleading image of environmental friendliness so as to conceal or obscure damaging activities.

   But what happens more often is that media “greenwashes” dirty energy sources (coal, gas, nuclear power) as “clean”—a particularly dangerous notion because it belies the threat they pose to our planet and human health.

   2011, Elaine Wellin, Kristen Seraphin, Project Censored, Censored 2012: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2010-11, →ISBN, Health and the Environment

   2 more examples

   The commercials were very effective – in 1990, they won an Effie advertising award, and subsequently became a case study at Harvard Business school. They also became notorious among environmentalists, who have proclaimed them the gold standard of greenwashing – the corporate practice of making diverting sustainability claims to cover a questionable environmental record.

   2016 August 20, Bruce Watson, “The troubling evolution of corporate greenwashing”, in The Guardian

   WWF recommends including the following Clauses in the Bill to avoid potential loopholes: […] Provide clear and comprehensive definitions of “disposable” and “single-use” to avoid greenwashing and false claims for products designed to be disposable but falsely marketed otherwise to circumvent the ban.

   2023, WWF—Hong Kong, “Submission on Product Eco-responsibility (Amendment) Bill 2023 (LC Paper No. CB(1)398/2023(09))”, in Documents of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, page 2