Greenwashing Across Industries: A Scoping Review of Explanatory Factors, Reporting Tactics, and Disclosure‐Action Decoupling

This scoping review provides an industry‐comparative synthesis of greenwashing and disclosure‐action decoupling in sustainability‐related reporting. Guided by PRISMA, it reviews 73 peer‐reviewed articles published between 2016 and 2025 and organizes them into three streams: variable‐based explanatory, report analysis, and disclosure‐action comparison studies. Integrating these streams, the review develops SEA (shaped‐enacted‐assessed) as a review‐derived analytical structure for examining how greenwashing is shaped by institutional, organizational, and market conditions; enacted through reporting tactics; and assessed through disclosure‐action comparison and proxy design. The findings show that industry context matters. External pressures may constrain or encourage symbolic reporting in certain industries, reporting tactics show sector‐linked patterns, and disclosure‐action assessment requires industry‐specific indicators. The review also identifies a policy challenge of designing rules that are stringent, clear, and enforceable enough to connect sustainability claims with verifiable implementation and calls for more industry‐sensitive empirical research, proxy design, and theory‐building.