Greenwashing and Consumer Awareness of Environmental Issues: A Pilot Analysis

Sustainability and the circular economy are topics of great interest in management, and in recent years, they have assumed considerable prominence in marketing and its strategies. Research interest in the topic is prompted by the presence of questions that are related to “green” marketing and require a more thorough approach to the study of this problem. In addition, one of the most important components of “green marketing,” namely, the phenomenon of “greenwashing,” also remains unexplored. The area of this work is “greenwashing” as one of the phenomena of “green” marketing. The subject of the research is a pilot analysis of consumer awareness of the “greenwashing” phenomenon in Italy. The method used is a survey and expert (in-depth) interviews. This study makes a theoretical contribution to solving one of the pressing problems of environmental marketing – the problem of ignorance about one of the phenomena of unfair marketing – greenwashing.