Exploring the "Greenwashing" Phenomenon in the Tourism Business Through a Sustainability Accounting Perspective

Abstract

The hotel industry has the potential to engage in greenwashing if it increasingly pursues the title of 'green hotel' in an unstructured manner. The greenwashing label only brings losses to the company, so it needs to be avoided. Based on a sustainability accounting perspective, greenwashing can be avoided by recording environmental accounts and energy use in financial reports. Environmental management is an important part in the context of profit, people, and planet-based sustainability. Hotels adopt sustainability accounting to avoid greenwashing and get the title of green hotel by having a CHSE certificate. Sustainability accounting is also reflected in green competitive advantage. The concept of green competitive advantage has been described as the condition of a company that cannot be imitated by other businesses, where the company holds a position regarding ecological management or sustainability of innovation.