Debunking Greenwashing: Investigating the Individual Drivers of Perceived Greenwashing and Negative Word-Of-Mouth

There is growing concern about environmental sustainability among consumers, governments, the general public and media, leading some companies to go green, while others only talk about going green. The latter is also known as greenwashing, where companies stretch the truth about their environmentally friendly practices. In this study, we focus on consumer perceptions of greenwashing to explain what influences these perceptions have and how consumers respond to greenwashing. With the help of a market research firm we collected data from 1,272 respondents. Testing the proposed hypotheses confirmed that negative views of persuasion and environmental self-identity have a positive effect on perceived greenwashing, while the latter has a positive effect on negative word-of-mouth. The relationship between perceived greenwashing and negative word-of-mouth is positively moderated by consumer-brand identification. The results shed light on the importance of individual characteristics in explaining perceived greenwashing and subsequent negative word-of-mouth.