Green or greenwashed? Examining consumers' ability to identify greenwashing

Nowadays, companies and consumers face the challenge of navigating around the pitfalls of greenwashing in markets presenting uncountable new and existing green products. This research examines consumer perceptions of such products and the extent to which consumers are able to identify greenwashing. Drawing on categorization theory, consumers may classify a new product based on different green cues as honest green, greenwashed, or non-green. We test this ability across three different products in two experimental studies (N = 700) conducted in Germany and find that consumers fall for greenwashing when they are asked solely for their purchase intentions. Activating a greenwashed product category by asking participants for their perceived greenwashing helped them to spot the differences between the green products. This research contributes to the literature by directly examining consumers' ability to distinguish between greenwashed and honest green products and by providing empirical evidence that consumers can do so when they are primed. That is, the activation of a greenwashed product category can support consumers in identifying greenwashing. Practically speaking, this research may point public policy toward category activation as a simple measure to help consumers unmask greenwashing in purchase contexts.