Concepts and forms of greenwashing: a systematic review

Abstract

Background: The aggravation of environmental problems has led companies to seek the development and commercialization of green products. Some companies mislead their stakeholders through a phenomenon called greenwashing. Results: This paper aims to explore the phenomenon of greenwashing through a systematic literature review in search of its main concepts and typologies in the past 10 years. This research has followed the proceedings of a systematic review of the literature, based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). We identified a major classification of greenwashing: firm-level executional, firm-level claim, product-level executional, and product-level claim. Conclusion: It was possible to highlight and catalog the types of the phenomenon. A structure based on such type has been observed in the literature.