When Corporate Actions Do Not Lead to Purported Impact: Type II Greenwashing as a Barrier to Sustainability Mainstreaming

Abstract

To dispel suspicions of “greenwashing,” many companies have adopted more rigorous corporate sustainability communication (CSC) practices, such as reporting an increased amount of numerical, third-party verified data. This has led to claims that greenwashing is declining. In this conceptual article, we propose a more nuanced diagnosis, arguing the importance of distinguishing between two types of greenwashing: Type I, that is, CSC practices by which companies exaggerate the extent to which they engage in actions described as socially or environmentally desirable; and Type II, that is, CSC practices by which companies falsely suggest that their actions contribute to the macro-level goal of sustainability. While Type I greenwashing may have declined, Type II greenwashing remains insufficiently conceptualized and countered, thus posing a major obstacle to mainstreaming sustainability. We identify key features of Type II greenwashing, theorize three discursive devices through which it operates, and outline ways to thwart it.

Keywords

sustainability sustainability communication sustainability mainstreaming greenwashing decoupling critical discourse analysis

Introduction

The past three decades have seen repeated calls to accelerate the integration of sustainability-related considerations into corporate activities (Shrivastava, 1995; Southey, 2001). In response, corporate sustainability communication (CSC) has become ubiquitous (KPMG, 2024). Nevertheless, the socio-environmental impacts of global economic activity have worsened relentlessly during this period (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2023; Montgomery et al., 2024), suggesting that much of the CSC is disconnected from the implementation of genuine sustainability efforts.

This disconnect is known as “greenwashing,” and has received considerable attention in the academic literature (Delmas & Burbano, 2011; Montgomery et al., 2024). Greenwashing is widely understood to refer to misleading communication by which companies make their stakeholders believe that they are acting more sustainably than they actually are (Delmas & Burbano, 2011; Gatti et al., 2025; Montgomery et al., 2024). For example, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) recently agreed on a common definition of greenwashing as “a practice where sustainability-related statements [. . .] do not clearly and fairly reflect the underlying sustainability profile of an entity” (European Securities and Market Authorities [ESMA], 2023).¹ Empirical audits confirm the scale of the problem: A European Commission study found that 53% of the sustainability-related claims examined across the EU were either vague, misleading or unsubstantiated (European Parliament, 2024).

The continued prevalence of greenwashing is surprising given the mounting pressure on companies to improve CSC accuracy. Activists and watchdog organizations have increasingly used social media to expose misleading claims (Bowen & Aragon-Correa, 2014; Lyon & Montgomery, 2013). In response, companies have adopted more rigorous reporting standards, such as those promoted by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) (Gilbert et al., 2011), and have sought third-party verification (International Federation of Accountants [IFAC], 2024; KPMG, 2024). Regulators have also introduced stricter disclosure requirements, such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

Nevertheless, there are good reasons to doubt that the heightened expectations for CSC accuracy will actually “end greenwashing” in the EU, as the European Parliament (2022) optimistically predicted. As early as 10 years ago, researchers already speculated that greenwashing would decline due to increased scrutiny of corporate communications (Lyon & Montgomery, 2013). However, the ongoing pervasiveness of greenwashing has led these scholars to revise their position, acknowledging that it is still widespread and may even be “more virulent than ever” (Montgomery et al., 2024, p. 221). This persistence suggests that anti-greenwashing efforts have targeted only certain manifestations of the phenomenon, overlooking variants that operate below the radar of existing detection mechanisms (Montgomery et al., 2024). These overlooked forms of greenwashing constitute a major obstacle to genuine sustainability mainstreaming.

This article aims to help overcome this obstacle by laying the conceptual groundwork for further academic research and the development of practical measures against these underexplored forms of greenwashing. As Bernini and La Rosa (2024) have observed, greenwashing in its various forms can only be effectively addressed if it is rigorously defined based on “a strong and reliable theoretical foundation” (p. 406). Moreover, examples are necessary to help scholars, activists, and regulators understand how these forms of greenwashing can manifest in practice. Thus, we set out to define and conceptualize under-the-radar forms of greenwashing and illustrate them with concrete examples. In addition, our conceptual article aims to distinguish these forms of greenwashing from more scrutinized forms for which the existing reporting requirements may be a comparatively appropriate remedy.

We proceed as follows. First, we review recent literature calling for greater attention to underrecognized forms of greenwashing (Gatti et al., 2025; Kudłak, 2024; Montgomery et al., 2024). Next, we present and execute our three-step approach to conceptualizing these forms. In Step 1, we categorize greenwashing into two types based on the distinction between policy-practice and means-ends decoupling (Bromley & Powell, 2012), arguing that the latter type requires further exploration. In Step 2, we theorize three discursive devices—by which we mean linguistic tools that may be used intentionally or unintentionally—of Type II greenwashing: means-ends conflation, ends blurring, and causal misrepresentation. In Step 3, we characterize Type II greenwashing using insights from critical discourse analysis (CDA, see Fairclough, 2013). Finally, we discuss theoretical contributions and practical measures to support genuine sustainability mainstreaming, before identifying future research directions.

Growing Calls to Explore Underrecognized Forms of Greenwashing

The term “greenwashing” refers to the practice of companies making misleading claims about the environmental and/or social benefits of their products or practices (Delmas & Burbano, 2011; Gatti et al., 2025; Lyon & Maxwell, 2011). Lyon and Montgomery (2015) argue that attempts to define greenwashing more narrowly are not necessarily useful, as they tend to exclude some of the forms that miscommunication about socio-environmental performance can take. Rather, greenwashing should be understood as “a broad umbrella term that encompasses a variety of modes of misleading communication” (Lyon and Montgomery, 2015, p. 224). Such misleading communication is problematic because it enables companies to evade accountability for harmful practices, ultimately corrupting society’s ability to address environmental and societal challenges effectively (Montgomery et al., 2024).

The growth of academic literature on greenwashing has been continuous since the turn of the 21st century, interrupted only by a temporary stagnation in the mid-2010s (Montgomery et al., 2024). A resurgence of interest began in 2017, spurring multiple recent review articles (de Freitas Netto et al., 2020; Gatti et al., 2019; Montgomery et al., 2024).

Montgomery et al. (2024) explain this pattern by suggesting that, in the face of mounting criticism of greenwashing, companies have taken steps to remediate greenwashing in their communications. This has made greenwashing appear less of a problem and led to a flattening out of interest in greenwashing in the middle of the last decade. However, the recent resurgence of research suggests that the optimistic prediction made by some scholars around 10 years ago—that greenwashing would vanish altogether (Bowen, 2014; Lyon & Montgomery, 2013; Pope & Wæraas, 2016)—lost its appeal within the academic community.

Indeed, Montgomery et al. (2024) propose a more ambivalent picture, considering that it is more likely that different variants of greenwashing have developed along two distinct paths. On the one hand, increasing demands for transparency and new opportunities offered by social media for stakeholders to publicly expose instances of deceptive corporate communication may have led to a decline in certain types of greenwashing (see also Bowen & Aragon-Correa, 2014). On the other hand, other, possibly more sophisticated, variants of greenwashing have likely persisted or even increased, sparking renewed attention to the issue.

Additional scholars have expressed a similar view, calling for a more detailed exploration of persistent yet underrecognized variants of greenwashing (Gatti et al., 2025; Kudłak, 2024). Such exploration would advance academic understanding of greenwashing’s multifaceted nature while offering practical insights for activists, consumers, and regulators seeking to identify and counter lesser-known forms of greenwashing. As Gatti et al. (2025, p. 2) point out, “[p]ractitioners, academics, and society at large” share a common interest in developing an “in-depth comprehension” of the various forms of greenwashing, particularly those that have thus far received insufficient attention.

Montgomery et al. (2024) began to advance this agenda by proposing a typology that accounts for the evolution of greenwashing over time, with the aim of identifying its emerging and understudied forms. To accomplish this, they conducted a historical analysis of the greenwashing literature using topic modeling and distinguished three main types of greenwashing. Greenwashing 1.0 is the unidirectional and comparatively straightforward act of misleading stakeholders, primarily consumers, by companies. Greenwashing 2.0 covers more sophisticated forms of greenwashing, such as when the boundary between deceiver and deceived becomes blurred, or when actors beyond companies disseminate misleading messages (e.g., uncritical press coverage of supposedly sustainable corporate practices). Greenwashing 3.0, or “futurewashing,” is an emerging form referring to companies alluding to future actions rather than communicating about current performance.

Our article is a continuation of Montgomery et al.’s (2024, p. 222) efforts to explore “the newest forms of greenwash” to better “understand [. . .] this pressing issue in its current forms.” Our approach is complementary in two respects. First, while Montgomery et al. (2024) are primarily interested in the constellation and interaction of actors involved in the production and reception of greenwashing, especially in defining and describing greenwashing 1.0 and 2.0, we focus on the discursive dimension of greenwashing. Uncovering the discursive devices through which underrecognized forms of greenwashing operate, and providing concrete examples from CSC to illustrate these devices, can help thwart them more effectively. This can enable actors critical of greenwashing, as well as the wider public, to systematically identify such cases of miscommunication. A second difference between our article and that of Montgomery et al. (2024) is that we adopt a conceptual (rather than empirical) approach to distinguishing different variants of greenwashing and to develop a deeper understanding of those that are less in the focus of current anti-greenwashing efforts. Developing a deeper conceptual understanding of problematic phenomena, such as greenwashing, helps us reflect on the most effective ways to prevent them (Wickert et al., 2021). The next section explains how we proceed in our conceptualization.

Approach to Conceptualizing Underrecognized Forms of Greenwashing

Our theory building process encompasses three steps, which are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1.

Three-Step Approach to Conceptualizing Underrecognized Forms of Greenwashing.

	Step 1: Proposing a typology of greenwashing	Step 2: Theorizing and illustrating the discursive devices of Type II greenwashing	Step 3: Characterizing Type II greenwashing
Basic theory type as per Sandberg and Alvesson’s (2021) typology	Ordering theory	Comprehending theory	Provoking theory
Approach	Draw on the distinction between policy-practice and means-ends decoupling, as defined by institutional scholars, to distinguish between two fundamental types of greenwashing.	Identify possible discursive devices of Type II greenwashing and verify that examples matching these devices exist.	Use insights from critical discourse analysis to explore the features of Type II greenwashing.
Main outcome	Distinction between Type I and Type II greenwashing, along with their definitions.	Three devices of Type II greenwashing illustrated by examples from CSC: means-ends conflation, ends blurring, and causal misrepresentation.	Key features of Type II greenwashing compared to those of Type I greenwashing.

First, we distinguish between the main types of greenwashing to identify lesser-recognized type(s) that warrant closer analysis. This initial step corresponds to what Sandberg and Alvesson (2021) refer to as developing an “ordering theory,” involving “sorting [a] phenomen[on] into well-distinguished [. . .] types or categories,” enabling us “to reason in more differentiated and nuanced ways” (p. 501) about the phenomenon in question—in this case, greenwashing.

We base our typification of greenwashing on insights from the decoupling literature in institutional theory. Indeed, one perspective on greenwashing views it as a form of “decoupling” (Bernini & La Rosa, 2024; Montgomery et al., 2024; Pizzetti et al., 2021). This perspective is particularly suitable to our endeavor of typifying greenwashing, as the implications of Bromley and Powell’s (2012) key categorization of decoupling into two types—policy-practice and means-ends—have yet to be explored in relation to greenwashing.

We propose using this fundamental distinction to differentiate between two types of greenwashing, which we term “Type I” and “Type II” greenwashing. Furthermore, we argue that Type II greenwashing, defined as discursive practices that misrepresent a corporate action (the meso-level “means”) as conducive to achieving sustainability (the declared macro-level “end”), has been underrecognized compared to Type I greenwashing, and thus merits further conceptual exploration.

The second step in our conceptualization process is to conduct such an exploration of Type II greenwashing by developing a “comprehending theory,” as Sandberg and Alvesson (2021) term it. This type of theory focuses on the “systems of meaning” (p. 496) at play in specific phenomena and how these meanings are created and understood. Specifically, we theorize the discursive devices employed in Type II greenwashing. To accomplish this, we identified examples of communication practices that make a company’s actions appear more suitable to achieving sustainability than they actually are. We found these examples in the academic literature, through colleagues, and our own observations of CSC. Then, using an abductive approach typical of phenomenon-based theorizing (Fisher et al., 2021), we cycled between conjecturing possible discursive devices that could create the misleading impression of a closer means-end connection than is actually the case, and verifying that these devices manifested empirically in CSC.

This process led us to identify three discursive devices with illustrative examples. The first device involves the conflation of the means and the end, making them seem inextricably linked. The second device involves the blurring of the end, which complicates the evaluation of the effectiveness of the means in achieving it. The third device is to suggest a causal relationship between the means and the end, despite the absence or tenuous nature of such a relationship. These three devices are not mutually exclusive and may occur together within a single text. In line with CDA, we use the term “text” to refer to any piece of communication from a company about its actual or alleged corporate sustainability activities, whether written or spoken (e.g., a report, brochure, or executive presentation). We do not claim that these three devices are the only ways in which Type II greenwashing occurs. However, since all empirical examples of Type II greenwashing that we identified can be categorized under one of these devices, we believe that they provide reasonably exhaustive coverage of Type II greenwashing’s main forms.

The third and final step deepens our understanding of Type II greenwashing further. Recent scholarship suggests that the prevailing view of greenwashing as a company’s deliberate deception of stakeholders oversimplifies the phenomenon (Boiral et al., 2025; Vollero & Siano, 2024). Scholars suspect that greenwashing, particularly its lesser-examined forms, can be highly sophisticated (Gatti et al., 2025; Kudłak, 2024; Montgomery et al., 2024). In some cases, the lines between the deceiving firm and the deceived stakeholder may be blurred, and greenwashing may involve more than these two types of actors (Montgomery et al., 2024). These insights encourage us to move beyond the common description of greenwashing as deliberate deception, prompting us to develop what Sandberg and Alvesson (2021) call “provoking theory,” whose main purpose is “to show alternative, often eye-opening and disruptive ways of seeing phenomena” (p. 504) that can “open up new questions and ways of thinking” (p. 496). We reflect on the characteristics of Type II greenwashing by drawing on CDA, a branch of discourse studies that is specifically interested in discursive phenomena deemed problematic as they conceal certain matters or perpetuate criticizable power structures (Fairclough, 2013). CDA scholars’ approach to communication is helpful for our purpose because it acknowledges that not all communication is deliberate and pays attention to the habitual nature of much communication. This allows us to posit that, unlike Type I greenwashing, Type II greenwashing is often performed routinely and largely unconsciously. The subsequent “Theory Building” section follows these three steps as presented.

Theory Building

Step 1: Proposing a Typology of Greenwashing

The first step in developing our theory is to propose a new typology of greenwashing. This follows Lyon and Montgomery’s (2015, p. 224) call to “redirect” research to capture “the full range of misleading [. . .] communications” in CSC by “identif[ying] and catalogu[ing] the varieties of greenwash.” Since then, various attempts have been made to categorize forms of greenwashing based on different criteria. These include the location in the supply chain where practices are misrepresented in corporate communications (Pizzetti et al., 2021), the extent to which external audiences perceive a company’s claim, rightly or wrongly, as misleading (Seele & Gatti, 2017), the types of disclosure strategies that companies use (Bernini & La Rosa, 2024), and the actors and dynamics involved in producing and receiving misleading claims (Montgomery et al., 2024).

In contrast, we take a discursive approach, centering on what it is that can be misleading in CSC, that is, the object of discursive misrepresentation. One promising way to differentiate between types of greenwashing is to engage with the concept of decoupling from institutional theory (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Institutional theorists assume that decoupling is most likely to occur when organizations are faced with multiple, conflicting institutional pressures, such as balancing sustainability demands with financial performance (Bromley & Powell, 2012).

In fact, scholars have suggested that greenwashing is a form of decoupling related to the social and environmental aspects of corporate activity (e.g., Graafland & Smid, 2019). However, they tend to make only cursory reference to the broader institutional literature on decoupling, despite the important insights that can be drawn from it (e.g., Montgomery et al., 2024).

Institutional Scholars’ Distinction Between Policy-Practice and Means-Ends Decoupling

The distinction between policy-practice and means-ends decoupling—the latter of which is less explored despite its prevalence (Bromley & Powell, 2012)—is particularly relevant to our endeavor of typifying greenwashing. Policy-practice decoupling is the “classic” form of decoupling (Haack & Schoeneborn, 2015). It refers to situations where a company’s policies are disconnected from its practices. Scholars tend to use the term “policy” broadly in this context, referring not only to a corporate policy in the strict sense (i.e., a document intended to guide action, such as a procurement policy or a risk management policy), but more generally to any statement a company makes about its actual or alleged practices. Policy-practice decoupling thus refers to a discrepancy between a company’s purported actions and its actual actions.

An important assumption made by Bromley and Powell (2012) is that in today’s world, where demands for organizational transparency and accountability intensify, it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to claim that they are engaged in certain actions when they are not. This does not mean, however, that decoupling is disappearing altogether: Rather, Bromley and Powell (2012) suggest that it is shifting from policy-practice decoupling to means-ends decoupling. The latter is understood as a disconnect between a company’s practices and the goals these practices are supposed to serve. In other words, organizations may be less likely than in the past to falsely claim that they are performing certain actions, but those actions are becoming increasingly disconnected from the goals they are claimed to pursue.

The Shift From Policy-Practice to Means-Ends Decoupling in the Context of Corporate Social and Environmental Action

One area of business activity where Bromley and Powell (2012) suggest that the shift from policy-practice to means-ends decoupling is likely to be strong is in corporate actions for social or environmental benefit, that is, actions now commonly subsumed under the banner of “sustainability” (see also Stål & Corvellec, 2022; Wijen, 2014). This shift is due to increased pressure on companies to accurately report on their socio-environmental actions, resulting from stricter government regulation, a proliferation of rating agencies monitoring compliance with CSC standards, and social media amplifying public denunciations of inaccurate corporate claims (Lyon & Montgomery, 2013, 2015; Pope & Wæraas, 2016). This growing pressure makes it more difficult and riskier for companies to fully fabricate their sustainability efforts. As a result, companies are more likely to engage in at least some socio-environmental activity. However, companies are likely to prefer actions requiring comparatively little cost or effort, but that may not be conducive to achieving the objectives they purport to serve. Recent studies support this idea, indicating that a decoupling of means and ends has become more common in corporate social and environmental activities (Graafland & Smid, 2019; Stål & Corvellec, 2022).

The possibility for companies to engage in such means-ends decoupling is facilitated by the fact that actions taken in the name of “sustainability” are generally characterized by a degree of “causal complexity” (Wijen, 2014, p. 306). This means that these actions can have numerous direct and indirect effects that are difficult to disentangle and measure (Bromley & Powell, 2012). However, stakeholders’ difficulties in tracing and understanding the effects of a company’s social or environmental actions do not translate into ready acceptance of credibility. Stakeholders may perceive “gaps” (Stål & Corvellec, 2022, p. 877) between means and ends, that is, they may well suspect that “the actions [taken by a company] are of limited utility” in achieving the stated goals (Bromley & Powell, 2012, p. 14). Companies therefore utilize discursive devices to mislead stakeholders into believing that their actions are more effective at realizing their purported aims than they actually are. They produce an “extensive rhetoric” that, despite insufficient evidence, or even evidence to the contrary, “posit[s] a causal link between activities and outcomes” (Bromley & Powell, 2012, p. 14).

The Distinction Between Two Types of Greenwashing

Based on the above, it is possible to distinguish two types of greenwashing, that is, two types of misleading discursive practices employed in CSC. The first is Type I greenwashing, which we define as the “classic” decoupling of policy and practice in CSC. This is the type of greenwashing that companies engage in when issuing communications suggesting they are more committed to certain social or environmental actions than they really are. The second is Type II greenwashing, which we define as the discursive practices by which the actual disconnect between these actions and the goals these actions are claimed to serve is concealed—thereby facilitating the decoupling of means and ends in relation to corporate sustainability actions.

While Type I and Type II greenwashing are conceptually distinct, they are not mutually exclusive in practice. A single text may simultaneously misrepresent the extent of a company’s engagement in an action (Type I) and the degree to which that action contributes to its purported aims (Type II). For example, an airline’s sustainability report might overstate its current use of sustainable aviation fuels (Type I) while also incorrectly suggesting that these fuels are a credible pathway to net-zero aviation (Type II). The following two sections describe Type I and Type II greenwashing, respectively.

Type I Greenwashing

When companies suggest in their CSC that they are more committed to supposedly beneficial actions than they actually are, they engage in what we call Type I greenwashing, that is, policy-practice decoupling with respect to social or environmental issues. We take a broad view of the term “action”: It can be, for example, the adoption of a sustainability standard such as one regulating working conditions in the supply chain (Wijen, 2014), or a supposedly eco-friendly waste management practice (Stål & Corvellec, 2022), or the use of a more resource-efficient technology (Lane, 2013). Let us illustrate Type I greenwashing with the example of one such action: The use of so-called sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) by aviation companies. Unlike conventional jet fuel, that is, kerosene, SAFs are not derived from fossil resources, but from biomass. SAFs are being promoted by the aviation industry as a preferred alternative to kerosene-based fuel, particularly because of their reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

There are several ways in which airlines could engage in Type I greenwashing with respect to their use of SAFs. For example, they could outright lie about it, such as pretending to use SAFs when they do not, or claiming to use an inflated amount of SAFs (such airlines would be committing what the environmental consultancy TerraChoice has coined the “sin of fibbing,” Underwriters Laboratories [UL], 2024). More subtly, airlines could refrain from publishing figures while being vague in their claims, to suggest that their SAF consumption is higher than it actually is (thereby committing the “sin of vagueness,” UL, 2024) or publish absolute rather than relative consumption figures (as absolute figures tend to sound like a lot to non-experts). Airlines may also choose to emphasize a professed commitment to SAFs to divert attention from their abstention from other beneficial actions or even engaging in harmful actions that they are silent about. In doing so, they would be engaging in “selective disclosure,” defined as, “a form of greenwashing whereby companies disclose positive [. . .] actions while concealing negative ones” (Marquis et al., 2016, p. 483).

Watchdog and consumer advocacy organizations consistently remain active in identifying and exposing instances of Type I greenwashing, just as current reporting guidelines and standards are designed to prevent companies from indulging in Type I greenwashing. For example, GRI guidelines require companies to report in a balanced, clear and, where possible, externally verified manner on their actions on socio-environmental issues material to their industries (GRI, 2024).

The growing importance of CSC reporting standards, some of which are enforced by governments, as in the case of the CSRD, and the increasing reputational damage suffered by companies that are publicly accused of misrepresenting their actual behavior (Seele & Gatti, 2017), have made it more difficult for companies to engage in Type I greenwashing than in the past. However, whether this has led to a decline, or even whether Type I greenwashing is in the process of disappearing altogether, remains an open question.

We believe that, at least with respect to corporate social and environmental activities, there are good reasons to be cautious about institutional researchers’ assumption that policy-practice decoupling is vanishing in the age of the “audit society” (Power, 1999). Indeed, research suggests that external assurance has a limited effectiveness in preventing misreporting (Boiral et al., 2024), and that some sorts of Type I greenwashing, such as selective disclosure, remain a common practice even among companies that claim to apply the GRI framework extensively (Boiral, 2013).

It may seem counterintuitive that Type I greenwashing persists despite the increasing scrutiny of companies’ CSC. This is likely due to the modern-day “transparency myth,” i.e., the deeply ingrained belief that requiring organizations to disclose more data will necessarily provide clearer insight into their actual actions (Christensen & Cornelissen, 2015). However, this belief is based on two misconceptions. First, it underestimates the degree of discretion organizations continue to have in deciding which data to disclose and how to present it. For instance, despite its appearance of stringency, the GRI framework grants companies some flexibility in what they choose to disclose. Second, it overestimates audiences’ ability to competently interpret this data and their resources for doing so. For instance, audiences, particularly non-specialists, may have difficulty assessing whether figures reported under the GRI framework indicate good or poor sustainability practices. Thus, current CSC standards leave ample opportunity for companies to continue engaging in Type I greenwashing—albeit probably in more subtle forms (e.g., selective disclosure or “futurewashing” as described by Montgomery et al., 2024, where future commitments cannot be possibly debunked)—than the more basic forms that were common in the early days of CSC (e.g., fibbing).

However limited the success of anti-greenwashing efforts targeting Type I greenwashing may be, Type I greenwashing is at least receiving considerable and sustained attention from both academics and anti-greenwashing organizations. Type II greenwashing, which we will now turn to, has received less scrutiny.

Type II Greenwashing

Corporate actions such as those mentioned in the previous section are generally not seen as ends in themselves, but rather as means that serve particular social or environmental ends (Bromley & Powell, 2012; Wijen, 2014). Discourse analysts, whether critical or not, tend to adopt a constructivist view of communication (Fairclough, 2013). In line with our discursive approach, we consider, as Haack and Schoeneborn (2015) do, that the means-ends relationships binding corporate actions to their stated goals are discursively constructed rather than pre-existing.² Furthermore, we consider that the discursive construction of means-ends relationships occurs notably through CSC, in which firms typically not only give an account of the actions they claim to be taking, but also present these actions as serving desirable ends. This is exemplified by how companies now commonly refer to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their sustainability reports, which their actions supposedly address (KPMG, 2024).

That means-ends relationships are constructed, not predetermined, can be illustrated by how it is conceivable for companies to present the same action as a means to different ends. Taking SAFs as an example, airlines can either modestly present SAFs in their communications as a means to palliatively limit their CO₂ emissions, or more aggressively suggest that SAFs are a means to achieve climate-friendly aviation. Conversely, companies have some leeway in choosing which actions to present as serving a particular end: They may present the use of SAFs as the preferred means of achieving the goal of cleaner aviation, or they may instead present other measures, such as carbon offsets, improved air traffic management, or combinations thereof, as conducive to that goal.

That means-ends relationships are constructed does not mean that their plausibility cannot be logically and empirically examined. It may well be that—contrary to what a company suggests in its communications—it is highly unlikely or even impossible for the advertised actions to achieve the purported ends. For example, there is considerable evidence that SAFs are not a credibly scalable remedy for the climate damage caused by the aviation industry, as we will argue in Step 2 of our theory building (Milman, 2024). Airlines that suggest otherwise in their CSC are engaging, consciously or not, in what we call Type II greenwashing: They are misleading audiences into believing that certain actions are more conducive to achieving their purported goals than they actually are.

Whether deliberately carried out as a means of deceptive “virtue signaling” (Berthon et al., 2023) or unwittingly and routinely, Type II greenwashing is no less concerning than Type I greenwashing despite receiving less attention. Beyond creating an unwarranted positive corporate image, it also tends to create or perpetuate an illusion that certain corporate actions are effective solutions to social or environmental problems when, in fact, they are not. This, in turn, prevents gulled stakeholders from demanding that other, more effective actions be taken to address these problems. It is therefore important to elucidate the discursive devices through which Type II greenwashing can operate to expose it. To date, only a few academic works have explored the discursive devices associated with means-ends coupling or decoupling. Dick and Coule (2020) have shown that organizational members sometimes justify their organizations’ noncompliance with widely accepted rules by claiming that such noncompliance is more conducive to the organizations’ core goals. Somewhat closer to the focus of this article, Stål and Corvellec (2022) examined interview accounts of members of corporate management, such as sustainability managers, who, aware of a discrepancy between the actions their companies take and the purported goals of those actions, attempt to justify that discrepancy. However, to the best of our knowledge, no work has focused on conceptualizing the discursive devices that companies can use in CSC to create the illusion of a stronger means-ends alignment of their sustainability actions than is actually the case.

To undertake this conceptualization, we must first clarify the nature of the “ends” that Type II greenwashing falsely presents as achievable through actions that do not actually serve them. Indeed, in the decoupling literature, the term “ends” has been used in a variety of ways to denote different types of goals that actions may be intended to pursue (Jastram & Foersterling, 2024; Stål & Corvellec, 2022). We must therefore be clear about what kind of “ends” we are referring to when we talk about Type II greenwashing.

Drawing on social impact research, Jastram and Foersterling (2024) suggest distinguishing between “ends as outcomes” and “ends as impacts.” They argue that one way to differentiate between outcomes and impacts is to think of outcomes as the direct result of certain actions (e.g., the amount of CO₂ saved by using SAFs as opposed to kerosene), while impacts are the ultimate “changes to social [or environmental] systems” (Clark et al., 2004, p. 7) caused by those actions (e.g., the expected improvement in the climate situation as a result of using SAFs). Established CSC reporting standards require companies to comprehensively document the intended and actual outcomes of their social and environmental actions and suggest a wide range of metrics for doing so (see, e.g., the GRI’s disclosure requirements). Much less guidance is provided on how companies should communicate about the purported systemic impacts of their actions, making it easier for companies to exaggerate the extent to which their actions contribute to their “ends as impacts” versus “ends as outcomes.” For this reason, we focus on the former in our conceptualization of Type II greenwashing. We consider the “ends” that are wrongly portrayed as attainable by Type II greenwashing to be “ends as impacts.”

Now, we must still specify the “ends as impacts” that CSC portrays as the ultimate systemic goals of companies’ social and environmental actions. We contend that the answer can be found in the term “corporate sustainability communication” itself: sustainability. Indeed, “sustainability” is a systems concept originating in ecology (Milne & Gray, 2013) that refers to an ecosystem’s ability to continue indefinitely. Today, ecologists and ecological economists widely agree that the largest ecosystem—our planet as a whole, or more precisely, the biosphere—can be said to be in a sustainable state only if certain limits, or “planetary boundaries,” are not exceeded while certain “social foundations” are not compromised to ensure that basic human needs, such as access to food, housing, and education, are met (Raworth, 2018). In sum, Type II greenwashing refers to CSC practices that create the impression that certain corporate actions (the means) are more conducive to the systemic goal of sustainability (the ends) than they actually are.

Now that we have defined Type I and Type II greenwashing, we will proceed to Step 2 of our theory building process. Researchers have highlighted that despite its growing importance, means-ends decoupling remains understudied compared to policy-practice decoupling, and have specifically identified the role of language in sustaining means-ends decoupling as one area of needed research (Bromley & Powell, 2012; Stål & Corvellec, 2022). In line with this observation, we note that most of the greenwashing literature focuses on what we have categorized as Type I greenwashing (e.g., Lyon & Maxwell, 2011; UL, 2024). Much less is known about the discursive devices by which companies suggest that their sustainability actions are more effective than they actually are. In the following section, we thus explore the discursive devices of Type II greenwashing.

Step 2: Theorizing and Illustrating the Discursive Devices of Type II Greenwashing

In the previous section, we identified lying as a possible modality of Type I greenwashing, using the example of an airline misreporting the amount of SAFs it uses. Lying can also be a modality of Type II greenwashing. For example, an airline might claim that replacing kerosene entirely with SAFs is a viable solution to greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation sector. By doing so, the airline misrepresents the systemic impact of its SAF adoption, despite widespread doubts among scientists and aviation experts that SAFs are a viable pathway toward decarbonizing the aviation industry. Research has shown that the large-scale use of SAFs is neither credible nor desirable as a pathway to sustainability due to (a) still emitting CO₂ in the production and transport; (b) diverting significant public funding from other climate change efforts; and (c) requiring large swathes of arable land for production at scale, which involves clearing forests and similar ecosystems, thus destroying biodiverse carbon sequestration habitats (Becken et al., 2023). The airline is thus engaging in a different form of “futurewashing” than that described by Montgomery et al. (2024). This form of futurewashing can be classified as Type II greenwashing because it suggests that the industry-wide adoption of SAFs is conducive, in the long term, to the macro-level goal of sustainability, despite scientific evidence to the contrary.³

Since the limitations on the scalability of SAFs are significant and well-documented, an airline would take a serious reputational risk by publicly claiming otherwise. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that outright lies are the exception rather than the rule in Type II greenwashing, as they are in Type I greenwashing. Type II greenwashing is likely to operate through more subtle and sophisticated discursive devices. Following Mueller and Whittle (2011), we use the term “discursive devices” to refer to “language-based tools” (p. 188) that may be employed intentionally or unintentionally. Through an iterative process, we identified examples of CSC practices that create the impression that certain corporate actions are a more effective means of achieving the end of sustainability than they actually are, as well as the discursive devices exemplified by these practices. This process led us to identify three main devices through which Type II greenwashing can operate. The key characteristics of these devices are outlined in Table 2.

Table 2.

The Discursive Devices of Type II Greenwashing.

	Means-ends conflation	Ends blurring	Causal misrepresentation
Definition	Discursive fusion of corporate actions and the macro-level goal of sustainability.	Discursive creation of vagueness regarding the broader macro-level goal of sustainability.	Discursive suggestion of a stronger causal relationship between corporate actions and the macro-level goal of sustainability than exists in reality.
Cognitive effect on audiences	Impression that corporate actions are inextricably linked to the macro-level goal of sustainability that they are supposed to serve.	Lack of a clear reference point against which to judge how conducive corporate actions are to achieve the macro-level goal of sustainability.	Impression that corporate actions are more aligned with the macro-level goal of sustainability than they actually are.
Example	Using syntagms that label corporate actions as “sustainable,” such as “sustainable aviation fuel” or “sustainable finance.”	Characterizing the macro-level goal of sustainability as a “vision” and the path to achieving it as a “journey.”	Suggesting that actions were taken with the intention of achieving the SDGs, even though they are only vaguely related to the topics addressed by these SDGs.

The first device is means-ends conflation, which involves collapsing the distinction between means and ends. Means-ends conflation hinders audiences from clearly distinguishing between the actions taken by companies and the macro-level goal of sustainability that these actions are supposed to serve. Thus, it becomes more difficult for audiences to critically question the actual effectiveness of these actions in promoting sustainability. The second device is ends blurring, which is the discursive creation of ambiguity about the broader macro-level goal of sustainability. By creating a lack of clarity about the desired end state, ends blurring prevents audiences from having a clear reference point against which to judge the effectiveness of companies’ actions. The third device is causal misrepresentation, which is the suggestion of a causal link between a corporate action and the overarching goal of sustainability when such a link does not exist or is tenuous at best. Below, we briefly describe each device and illustrate it with examples.

Means-Ends Conflation

As we have just described, SAFs can hardly be considered as a solution that is conducive to sustainability due to the limited scalability of the technology. However, this recognition is complicated by the very term used to describe these fuels: “sustainable aviation fuels.” By using the term “sustainability” (the end) in its adjectival form to characterize a corporate action that is supposed to bring it about (fuels of organic origin, i.e., the means), the very term SAF conflates means and end in a way that makes it difficult, especially for the layperson, to dispute that SAFs are conducive to sustainability. Indeed, it is difficult to challenge that SAFs are a viable path to sustainability when they have the word “sustainable” in their name. The terms we commonly use to refer to things are discursive conventions that we tend to take for granted (Fairclough, 2013).

The term SAF also illustrates how the word “sustainability” is often used in the corporate world in a way that does not reflect its original meaning (Dyllick & Hockerts, 2002; Milne and Gray 2013). Milne and Gray (2013) suggest that the term “corporate sustainability” is confusing because it blends two different levels of consideration: “Sustainability is essentially a systems level concept and not an organizational one” (p. 24). We find the term “sustainable aviation fuel” similarly confusing, because it mischaracterizes a business practice by labeling it with a systemic concept. The use of bio-sourced fuels is no exception in this regard, as many other business practices are commonly labeled “sustainable” in CSC, for example, “sustainable finance,” a term widely used in the financial sector. Like the term SAF, the phrase “sustainable finance” conflates a corporate practice—in this case, the act of incorporating ESG criteria into investment decisions—with the alleged systemic impact of achieving sustainability. There is reason to believe that the inappropriate and inflationary use of the adjective “sustainable”—as Meuer et al. (2020, p. 320) put it, “potentially every corporate activity can be labeled as sustainable”—is diluting the meaning of the concept of sustainability. When the adjective “sustainable” is misused in corporate communication to characterize actions that have, at best, a tenuous connection to systemic sustainability, the term comes to mean nothing more than “somehow socially or environmentally advantageous.”

The characterization of corporate actions as “sustainable” thus facilitates means-ends decoupling in two ways: First, it suggests that these actions inherently lead to the end state of sustainability, even when they do not. Second, it contributes to undermining the original meaning of sustainability, thus weakening the function that this concept could and should play in guiding economic behavior to stay within the limits of what our planet can support.⁴

Ends Blurring

A second way in which companies can facilitate the decoupling of means and ends in CSC is to remain vague about the end. This is what we call ends blurring. Preventing audiences from having a clear understanding of the end state of sustainability makes it more difficult for those audiences to assess the appropriateness of specific corporate actions as a means to that end. Actions that are not, in fact, conducive to sustainability may then appear more so.

One way in which ends blurring works is by talking about sustainability through the “journey metaphor,” a rhetorical device that allows companies to leave the desired end state of our planet unspecified. Milne et al. (2006) critique this in-depth, arguing that “[t]he portrayal of ‘sustainability as a journey’ [. . .] masks the issue of towards what it is that businesses are actually, or even supposedly, moving,” helping companies “avoid becoming embroiled in debates about future desirable and sustainable states of affairs” (p. 801).

Another method of blurring the end of sustainability toward which corporate action is supposed to be directed is to outline “grand vision[s],” such as those which Feix and Philippe (2020, p. 154) find present in narratives produced by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a collective of international companies that produces thought papers on corporate action for sustainability. These visions are often set in the distant future, such as the WBCSD’s “Vision 2050,” and are also “knowingly and willingly kept implausible” (Feix & Philippe, 2020). While such “ecotopias” could be argued to have inspirational value (De Geus, 2002), we suspect that their conspicuous implausibility serves to ensure that they are seen as aspirations rather than concrete goals to which these corporations are seriously committed and can be held accountable.

The launch of the SDGs has certainly led to a shift in the way companies communicate about the end of sustainability, which they claim to be working toward. Outlines of unrealistic “grand visions” have been in part replaced by references to the SDGs, which many companies now routinely include in their non-financial reports (KPMG, 2024). This does not mean that the problem of blurred objectives has been completely resolved. First, the SDGs themselves have been criticized for their lack of realism. Not only is it questionable whether the SDGs are consistent with each other (Hickel, 2019), but some SDGs and their targets are quite clearly unattainable,⁵ which in turn raises the question of the extent to which the SDGs should be perceived as measurable “goals” rather than lofty “aspirations.” Moreover, studies suggest that companies often do not consider the SDGs in their entirety, but rather “cherry-pick” those SDGs that suit them (Mhlanga et al., 2018). But even for the SDGs that they do choose to report on, companies may suggest that there is a stronger link between the actions they take and those SDGs than is actually the case, as we will explain next.

Causal Misrepresentation

A third discursive device that can be used in CSC to mislead audiences into believing that corporate actions are more conducive to sustainability than they actually are involves suggesting that there exists a stronger causal relationship between the two than there actually is. We call this causal misrepresentation. One way to engage in causal misrepresentation is via communication that suggests that incremental actions are sufficient to lead to more radical change (Feix & Philippe, 2020; Milne et al., 2006). Another type of causal misrepresentation is to suggest that certain actions have been taken with the intention of serving as a means to achieving the end of sustainability, when in fact this is not the case.

How many companies refer to the SDGs in their communications is an example of such misrepresentation. Companies often describe themselves as “committed to,” “aligned with,” or “embracing” the SDGs (e.g., Microsoft, 2022), implying that their actions are strongly geared toward achieving the SDGs. However, the speed with which companies have made such statements and referenced the SDGs in their CSC should give us pause for thought. By 2017 (i.e., less than 2 years after the SDGs were proclaimed by the UN General Assembly), 43% of the largest 250 multinational companies had already referred to the SDGs in their non-financial reports (KPMG, 2017), rising to 72% by 2020 (KPMG, 2024). It is highly unlikely that, in this short timeframe, the corporate world has accomplished the considerable work required to truly “align” its behavior with the SDGs: from understanding the highly complex and interconnected macro-systemic issues that the SDGs address, to deriving and launching corporate actions that are genuinely adapted to address these issues in a way that is consistent with the 2030 Agenda. Research on how companies refer to the SDGs in their non-financial reports confirms that companies often do not treat the SDGs as concrete “goals,” that is, deriving their actions from them. Instead, they treat the SDGs as broad themes under which they categorize their social or environmental actions, often a posteriori, meaning that these actions were already in place before the companies supposedly “committed” to such SDGs (Heras-Saizarbitoria et al., 2022).

The three devices that we have theorized—means-ends conflation, ends blurring and causal representation—are not mutually exclusive but can co-occur within a single text. For instance, an airline that uses the term SAF to refer to the biofuels it uses and presents this practice as contributing to SDG 13 (combating climate change) conflates the means and the end and misrepresents the causal relationship between the two within the same text. In the Discussion section, we propose exploring the cognitive implications of using multiple Type II greenwashing devices concurrently as a fruitful avenue for research.

Step 3: Characterizing Type II Greenwashing

The term “greenwashing” is commonly used to describe deceptive practices that mislead stakeholders regarding a company’s actual contributions to sustainability (Delmas & Burbano, 2011; Gatti et al., 2025; Montgomery et al., 2024). However, the existing literature is divided on whether this deception is intentional.

Some definitions of greenwashing explicitly assert that it is intentional. For example, Nyilasy et al. (2012) consider greenwashing to be “the intentional misrepresentation of a firm’s environmental efforts” (p. 117, emphasis added), while Long et al. (2025) describe it as a form of “hypocrisy,” a term also implying intentionality. Gatti et al. (2021) state even more categorically that “greenwashing [. . .] always involves a strategic, intentional and voluntary corporate lie” (p. 229).

However, recent works have challenged the notion that greenwashing invariably entails deliberate intent. For example, Boiral et al. (2025) “questio[n] the intentional character” (p. 1) of greenwashing, which “[m]ost research on greenwashing emphasizes” (p. 3). They argue that the very complexity of the concept of “sustainability” makes it likely that an organization will engage in greenwashing, “even if the organization did not intend from the outset to intentionally mislead stakeholders” (p. 4). Referring to Bowen (2014), Vollero and Siano (2024) also suggest that greenwashing, particularly in its more sophisticated forms that evade stakeholder scrutiny, may “not always [be] characterised by deliberate or intentional acts” (p. 182). The authors also note that, despite being sensitive to the broader normative and cultural context in which greenwashing occurs, works studying greenwashing from an institutional perspective typically do not “dwe[ll] on [its] intentional or unintentional nature” (p. 186). To initiate reflection on whether Type II greenwashing is deliberate, we find it useful to draw on CDA (Fairclough, 2013), which examines discursive phenomena that conceal or obscure certain matters, thereby perpetuating problematic situations or power relations. Greenwashing is such a problematic discursive phenomenon because it enables companies to appear more committed to sustainability than they actually are, thereby dissuading them from making more substantive efforts toward sustainability.

CDA scholars point out that specific “discursive events,” i.e., instances of language use within particular texts, are not usually entirely unique (Fairclough, 2013). Instead, they follow “discursive conventions,” that is, communicative standards by which actors in the field commonly express themselves. For example, when an airline such as the Lufthansa Group reports on its “use of SAF in 2024” in an annually published “sustainability factsheet” (Lufthansa, 2025, p. 10), this can be considered a discursive event. In this discursive event, the airline refers to fuels of biological origin as “SAFs,” a term which, as we demonstrated in the previous section, contributes to means-ends conflation in CSC. By doing so, the airline is drawing on a discursive convention because this terminology is commonplace among companies in the aviation industry.

The other examples we provided to illustrate the three devices of Type II greenwashing also constitute discursive conventions. It is common for companies to use phrases such as “sustainable finance” or the “journey” metaphor when talking about sustainability. Similarly, it has become a discursive convention for companies to categorize their social or environmental actions loosely against the SDGs, rather than attempting to rigorously derive the measures they take from the SDGs. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Type II greenwashing largely operates through discursive conventions.

CDA scholars argue that people tend to underestimate the extent to which their communication is conformist. According to Fairclough (2013), people generally think that they have “a greater consciousness of and control over [their] [discursive] practice than is actually [. . .] the case” (p. 113). People tend to reproduce discursive conventions largely unconsciously. Employees, for example, often imitate the ways in which their colleagues and competitors’ employees express themselves, largely unwittingly. Institutionalists refer to this tendency to imitate practices across organizations, whether discursive or not, as “isomorphism” (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Even when people notice that what they say is conventional, they are often unaware of the problematic implications of the discursive conventions they follow.

In keeping with this idea, it seems plausible, for example, that employees in a company’s sustainability reporting department might classify certain actions taken by their company under the SDGs without realizing that this misrepresents the relationship between means and ends. These employees may even genuinely believe that this is the “correct” approach to the SDGs in a professional context, and perhaps that they are advancing sustainability by doing so.

Thus, while it seems reasonable to assume that engaging in Type I greenwashing is often deliberate, the same cannot be said for Type II greenwashing. It is plausible that Type II greenwashing is sometimes executed with conscious intent: For example, the public relations department of an aviation company may cynically use and promote the term SAF, despite being aware that biofuels do not merit the designation of “sustainable” for the reasons previously outlined. However, Type II greenwashing is likely to often occur unintentionally through the unthinking reproduction of discursive conventions that facilitate the decoupling of means and ends. Unaware of the tactical reasons that have led the aviation company’s public relations department to promote the term SAF, many employees may use the term routinely without questioning it or recognizing that it conflates means and ends in a problematic way.

The unintentional nature of much Type II greenwashing aligns with the institutional literature’s argument that decoupling sometimes occurs even when not intentionally pursued (Bromley & Powell, 2012). For example, Crilly et al. (2012) argue that in response to institutional pressures, companies sometimes have no choice but to “muddle through” by unintentionally failing to implement CSR policies.

That Type II greenwashing primarily occurs through discursive conventions has implications that extend beyond the question of intentionality. It also informs the question of who contributes to the production and dissemination of Type II greenwashing. Discursive conventions spread through the involvement of diverse actors: The term SAF, for instance, is used by airlines, financial organizations, public authorities and supranational organizations alike (e.g., International Transport Forum [ITF], 2023). Similarly, the widespread but often lax referral to the SDGs in CSC is driven not only by companies, but also, perhaps primarily, by CSC standard setters such as the UN Global Compact. Thus, while responsibility for Type I greenwashing can reasonably be attributed primarily to companies that overstate their social or environmental efforts, responsibility for producing Type II greenwashing is much more diffuse.

Part of the responsibility for the spread of Type II greenwashing may even lie with the recipients of CSC. Echoing Montgomery et al.’s (2024) presumption that greenwashing can involve configurations more complex than a straightforward deceiver/deceived relationship, we may assume that recipients of Type II greenwashing are sometimes complicit in their own deception (Deweese-Boyd, 2023). This assumption is based on the recognition that understanding the phenomenon of greenwashing requires considering not only its producers but also its audience. Seele and Gatti (2017, p. 246) refer to this as the “co-creational character” of greenwashing. If greenwashing is not acknowledged and exposed by its audience—that is, if it falls under the category of “potential greenwashing” in Seele and Gatti’s (2017, p. 246) classification—it can proliferate unhindered.

A significant proportion of Type II greenwashing likely falls under this category, not because audiences are incapable of spotting it, but because they are partially unwilling to do so. In fact, social psychology suggests that people are often inclined to readily accept rather than challenge ideas they deem preferable because they alleviate emotional discomfort (McSweeney, 2021). Many people find it distressing to realize that our current economic system and the firms operating within it contribute to severe environmental degradation. Similarly, they dislike the idea that transitioning to a truly sustainable economy would require significant sacrifices, notably economic ones. This is also a key reason for the rise in “greenlash,” or pushback against environmental policies and movements (Tao & Ryan, 2025). Type II greenwashing is likely to ease this distress because it conveys the idea that comparatively minor corporate actions can be conducive to sustainability, which may comfort audiences. For example, the notion that SAFs will “transform” aviation and make flying “sustainable” may appeal to many travelers, even though it is unrealistic. This is because it does not require travelers to change their behavior significantly, such as switching to modes of travel that cost more time and money.

Table 3 below summarizes the key features of Type II greenwashing and compares them with those of Type I.

Table 3.

Comparison of Type I and Type II Greenwashing.

	Type I greenwashing	Type II greenwashing
Definition	CSC practices by which companies exaggerate their engagement in actions described as socially or environmentally desirable.	CSC practices by which companies falsely suggest that their actions contribute to the macro-level goal of sustainability.
Underlying form of decoupling	Policy-practice decoupling	Means-ends decoupling
Object of misrepresentation	Corporate behavior (i.e., what companies do)	Broader impact of corporate behavior (i.e., what is accomplished by what companies do)
Greenwashers	Individual companies	Multiple actors including companies, industry organizations, public organizations, supranational organizations, and CSC standard setters
Motives of greenwashers	Deliberate willingness to improve a company’s image	Can range from a deliberate willingness to improve a company’s or industry’s reputation to unintentionally conforming to discursive conventions
Role of the recipients	Usually deceived against their will.	May be complicit in their own deception (because they find Type II greenwashing reassuring).

Discussion

Type II Greenwashing: A Major Barrier to Genuine Sustainability Mainstreaming

For over three decades, researchers have investigated ways to accelerate the mainstreaming of sustainability and examined the challenges involved (Markard et al., 2020; Shrivastava, 1995; Southey, 2001). On the surface, sustainability mainstreaming is well underway today, with the term sustainability having become “diffused into virtually every major corporation in the Western world” (Gatti et al., 2025, p. 4). The statistics support this view: Among the 250 largest companies in the world, 96% report on sustainability, and 75% refer to the SDGs in their CSC (KPMG, 2024).

However, the state and outlook of the planet, particularly with regard to climate and biodiversity (IPCC, 2023), are so dire that we must exercise caution when judging companies’ frequent claims to sustainability. Given the prevalence of Type II greenwashing in CSC, we argue that we are actually witnessing a trompe-l’oeil sustainability mainstreaming—one that literally “tricks the eye.” Many companies claim to be committed to the macro-level goal of sustainability, yet they engage in discursive practices that allow them to act in ways that are disconnected from this goal. Type II greenwashing is thus a central barrier to what we may call, in contrast to trompe-l’oeil sustainability mainstreaming, genuine sustainability mainstreaming. By this, we mean an increasingly generalized commitment to actions that truly advance our societies toward sustainability.

As companies are likely to continue facing pressure to communicate about sustainability, we expect Type II greenwashing—which currently remains largely under the radar of activists, the media and CSC standard setters—to persist as an issue. Therefore, to foster genuine sustainability mainstreaming, it is all the more important to systematically examine Type II greenwashing and identify ways to curb it.

Theoretical and Practical Contributions

This article contributes to the literature on greenwashing by shedding light on a prevalent yet understudied form of it: Type II greenwashing. In doing so, we address the need to expose underrecognized forms of greenwashing that consequently go unchecked (Montgomery et al., 2024). Since Type II greenwashing hinders genuine sustainability mainstreaming, our work also contributes to research exploring ways to generalize conduct that effectively alleviates human-induced planetary problems (Markard et al., 2020).

To develop a theory of Type II greenwashing, we drew on the decoupling literature. Greenwashing scholars have often alluded to this literature, but its potential to identify under-researched variants of greenwashing had yet to be realized (Stål & Corvellec, 2022, pp. 879-880). We identified three discursive devices through which Type II greenwashing can function. With reference to CDA, we reflected on how Type II differs from Type I greenwashing, the latter of which is more commonly recognized and addressed.

By providing an account of Type II greenwashing and the discursive devices whereby it operates, our work unifies insights of previously isolated critical analyses of discursive conventions of CSC. Specifically, it highlights the commonality between conventions such as the “journey metaphor” (Milne et al., 2006), outlining “grand visions” (Feix & Philippe, 2020), and loosely referring to the SDGs (Heras-Saizarbitoria et al., 2022). We demonstrate that, despite their apparent differences, these discursive conventions all constitute cases of Type II greenwashing because they fulfill the same function: suggesting that corporate actions contribute more to the macro-level goal of sustainability than they actually do.

Our research also has practical implications for actors tackling greenwashing. Specifically, we call on information intermediaries, including governments, NGOs, the media, and standards and certification bodies, to systematically identify and expose instances of Type II greenwashing and to inform the public about its typical forms. To deter Type II greenwashing effectively, companies must believe that engaging in it carries risk.

One way to achieve this would be to establish CSC standards, preferably government-mandated, that deliberately make it more difficult for companies to engage in Type II greenwashing. Means-ends conflation, for instance, can be made more difficult by preventing companies from labeling practices as “sustainable” when their positive and scalable social or environmental impact is unclear or unproven, in much the same way that the EU prohibits the use of claims that are not “clear, accurate, and based on scientific evidence” to advertise nutritional supplements (European Commission, n.d.). For example, airlines would be prohibited from using the term “sustainable” in relation to technologies, such as organic fuels that are not scalable. This suggestion would complement the current legislative proposals aimed at imposing stricter controls on language describing practices claimed to be socially or environmentally friendly (e.g., the EU’s “Green Claims Directive”; European Parliament, 2024). We hope that legislators will scrutinize the currently very permissive use of the term “sustainable” more closely (Ballan & Czarnezki, 2024).

Further action against Type II greenwashing could include establishing guidelines that encourage companies to align their pollution levels with agreed targets based on Earth science. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi, 2025), while not without its critics, offers a promising approach by providing a standardized framework that links corporate actions on carbon emissions to planetary boundaries through sector-specific pathways. The SBTi could inspire similar frameworks (ideally complemented by stronger regulatory schemes) for types of pollution other than greenhouse gases, such as novel entities, to more effectively address the current mismatch between corporate actions and their broader impacts on the planet.

Since Type II greenwashing is often produced and consumed unwittingly, we also consider it essential to develop what CDA scholars refer to as “critical language awareness” (Fairclough, 2013) among the public. The more aware and sensitive people become to the discursive conventions through which Type II greenwashing operates, the more difficult it will be for companies to exploit them in their communication without fearing reputational repercussions. Universities and business schools have a central role to play in this regard.

Future Research

Although we believe that our conceptual article lays the initial groundwork for understanding and identifying Type II greenwashing, more research, particularly empirical, is needed to further explore it.

Future research can advance our understanding of Type II greenwashing by examining its antecedents. This resonates with Schultz et al.’s (2013, p. 689) call for further research on the determinants of CSC-induced decoupling—whether this decoupling is aspirational (Christensen et al., 2013) or, on the contrary, prevents more substantive action for sustainability, as we suspect Type II greenwashing mostly does.

In this regard, context is central. As CDA scholars stress, to understand why discursive devices such as those we theorize about flourish in some circumstances requires examining the context in which they are used (Fairclough, 2013). This includes, for one, the immediate or “situational” context (p. 95). We believe that a fruitful avenue for future research is exploring the motives, emotions, and levels of awareness of actors who engage in Type II greenwashing directly, either as “senders” or “receivers” (Lyon & Montgomery, 2015). In our article, we have suggested that much of Type II greenwashing is produced largely unconsciously and without awareness of its problematic implications. We also argued that one reason Type II greenwashing is so appealing is because of its comforting qualities. Empirical research is needed to confirm or disprove these assumptions and to explore the cognitive processes involved in Type II greenwashing in more depth. In addition, it would be of interest to examine the cognitive implications of using multiple devices simultaneously within a single text. We hypothesize that the combined use of Type II greenwashing devices reinforces cognitive confusion, that is, further obscures the recipient’s understanding of the relationship between means and ends. The assumption of a synergistic relationship between the discursive devices of Type II greenwashing requires empirical study.

Another avenue for future research is exploring the “institutional [and] wider societal context” (Fairclough, 2013, p. 95) of Type II greenwashing. Specifically, we believe it is important to examine the constellation of broader factors that may make Type II greenwashing more or less likely. Consistent with the assumption that sustainability-related means-ends decoupling is fueled by the tension between economic and socio-environmental demands, we hypothesize that Type II greenwashing is especially common in industries where this tension is most intense. In line with Montgomery et al.’s (2024) assumption that uncritical media reception can facilitate greenwashing, we hypothesize that Type II greenwashing is more prevalent in contexts where alternative discourses, such as those promoting a strong understanding of sustainability rather than a weak one (Milne et al., 2006), are absent or marginalized. Building on our supposition that the phenomena of greenlash and trompe l’oeil sustainability mainstreaming are both driven by concerns about the cost of genuine mainstreaming, we also suggest conducting empirical research to explore their interplay.

Moreover, we suspect that addressing Type I and Type II greenwashing may involve a trade-off somewhat similar to the one Wijen (2014) suggested between addressing policy-practice decoupling and means-ends decoupling, and that this is worth investigating. One reason Type II greenwashing receives comparatively little attention may be that current CSC standards focus heavily on getting companies to publish factual and verifiable claims about their actions and their immediate results. While this may prevent some basic forms of Type I greenwashing, it may also distract attention from the more grandiose claims that companies make about the alleged systemic impacts of their activities. We hope that future research will explore whether and to what extent such trade-offs exist and need to be considered, to find ways to tackle Type I and Type II greenwashing together as effectively as possible.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank our editor, Frank de Bakker, and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and developmental feedback throughout the review process.

ORCID iD

Moritz Gruban

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Aurélien Feix gratefully acknowledges the funding he received from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number 156966).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Aurélien Feix is an associate professor at EDHEC Business School. Aurélien’s research focuses on issues at the intersection of organizations, society, and the environment. He is particularly interested in studying how companies and multi-stakeholder initiatives communicate about sustainability.

Moritz Gruban is a lecturer in Organisation Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. His research focuses on social evaluations of organizations and how organizations communicate about social and environmental initiatives.

Âriel de Fauconberg is an assistant professor of Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at NC State’s Poole College of Management, and member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network. Her research critically examines organizational sustainability challenges, with a focus on the development of transformative technologies that impact long-term social, environmental, and economic sustainability.

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