Getting Ahead of Greenwashing: A Primer for Stakeholders
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Getting Ahead of Greenwashing: A Primer for Stakeholders

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Greenwashing is not new, but recent events have highlighted the risk in telling a “green lie,” or creating the impression, however inadvertently, that a company is doing more to protect the environment than it really is. Two recent events—the resignation of a chief executive at DWS Group, a top asset management firm in Germany, after a police raid spurred by allegations of greenwashing, and a $1.5 million penalty against BNY Mellon for misstating its ESG policy—have put a spotlight on an area of increasing concern for stakeholders and investors.

Greenwashing is not new, but recent events have highlighted the risk in telling a “green lie,” or creating the impression, however inadvertently, that a company is doing more to protect the environment than it really is. Two recent events—the resignation of a chief executive at DWS Group, a top asset management firm in Germany, after a police raid spurred by allegations of greenwashing, and a $1.5 million penalty against BNY Mellon for misstating its ESG policy—have put a spotlight on an area of increasing concern for stakeholders and investors.

Greenwashing is multifaceted, involving creating the impression, however inadvertently, that a company is doing more to protect the environment than it really is.

 

Forms of greenwashing

 Source: The Conference Board, 2022

Giving the impression that a company, business, product, or service is environmentally friendly or ecologically sustainable when there is little or no evidence to back those claims is the essence of greenwashing. A less obvious form of greenwashing is a failure to provide a holistic view of a

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