Greenwashing or Green Marketing?
The environment has been and still is globally on top of consumers’ concerns (Aji and Sutikno 2015; Elite Daily 2015). Therefore, companies try to market themselves as “green” as possible, but some of them are doing it just to attract more customers instead of actually doing something good for the environment (Chen and Chan 2013). These misleading actions confuse the consumer, and might make them avoid purchasing green products which would be bad for the honest eco-friendly organisations (Furlow 2010;UL 2013a; twosides 2017). More exactly, it’s all about greenwashing vs green marketing.
Started somewhere around the mid-1980s (not a new practice), greenwashing is defined as a marketing tool used by companies for deceiving consumers about their environmental deeds or about the eco-friendliness of their products or services (Marciniak 2009; Dahl 2010;Parguel et al. 2011, cited in Chen and Chan 2013, p.489).
According to TerraChoice Environmental Marketing Inc. (2007), there are 6 greenwashing sins (7 since 2009) which should make consumers aware of how to differentiate the companies with honest environmental practices from the fake ones (terrachoice 2009).
Also known as Environmental Marketing or Ecological Marketing, green marketing is defined as a company’s deliberate determination to deliver its customers eco-friendly products or services as well as their involvement in truthful green intentions (Grewal and Levy 2008 cited in Lu et al. 2013; Singal et al. 2013). In other words, green marketing is the opposite of greenwashing (carboncompass 2010). Clark (2014) has added another P (for planet) to the well-known 7Ps from
marketing and created the 8th P of Green Marketing.
As consumers are willing to buy “green” products and services, companies have to make an effort and collaborate with their stakeholders in order to decline the use of greenwashing in the market place and promote more green marketing (Marciniak 2009; terrachoice 2009; Green Plus 2015).
As consumers are willing to buy “green” products and services, companies have to make an effort and collaborate with their stakeholders in order to decline the use of greenwashing in the market place and promote more green marketing (Marciniak 2009; terrachoice 2009; Green Plus 2015).
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