Greenwashing: definition, examples and how to spot it

What is greenwashing?

Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing practice in which a company presents itself, its products or its services as environmentally friendly when its actual activities do not support that claim. It relies on vague wording, green imagery and unverified labels to attract eco-conscious consumers, without any genuine reduction of the company's environmental impact. The Cambridge Dictionary sums it up as making "people believe that your company is doing more to protect the environment than it really is".

The scale of the problem is well documented. In a 2020 sweep of company websites, the European Commission found that 53% of the environmental claims examined were vague, misleading or unfounded, and that 40% were completely unsubstantiated. As greenwashing spreads, consumer scepticism grows — and that scepticism ends up hurting the brands that genuinely invest in sustainable development.

Greenwashing has two main consequences:

1. it misleads consumers, who often pay a premium for products they believe are sustainable;
2. it delivers no real improvement in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions or in the fight against global warming.

How greenwashing works: the seven sins

Greenwashing techniques are highly codified. In 2007, the Canadian consultancy TerraChoice (now part of UL Solutions) classified them into the seven sins of greenwashing, a framework still used today to audit environmental advertising:

More recent techniques have joined these classic sins: "chequebook" carbon neutrality — declaring a product "climate neutral" by buying cheap carbon offsets instead of cutting the company's own emissions — and greenhushing, which consists of hiding environmental information altogether to avoid scrutiny.

Greenwashing examples: famous real-world cases

While genuine green initiatives benefit companies, few things damage a reputation as fast as fake ones. The following cases — all sanctioned by courts or consumer authorities — show how greenwashing operates in practice.

Airlines: KLM and Lufthansa

In March 2024, the Amsterdam District Court ruled that 15 of the 19 environmental claims in KLM's "Fly Responsibly" campaign were misleading and unlawful under European consumer law: the ads gave the false impression that flying with the airline was — or was about to become — sustainable, when the measures announced barely reduced its impact. A year later, in March 2025, the Cologne Regional Court banned Lufthansa from advertising its "Green Fares" with the promise of offsetting flight emissions, because the airline left consumers "in the dark" about how, and to what extent, the CO₂ was actually being compensated.

Fast fashion: Shein, H&M and Decathlon

In July 2025, France's consumer watchdog (DGCCRF) fined Shein a record €40 million for fake discounts and for environmental claims it could not substantiate: the platform presented itself as a "responsible company" cutting its emissions by 25%, a claim incompatible with its low-cost mass-production model. Back in 2022, the Dutch consumer authority ACM had already forced H&M and Decathlon to drop vague labels such as "Conscious" and "Ecodesign" and to donate €500,000 and €400,000 to sustainable causes over insufficiently substantiated claims.

Greenwashing in the energy sector

The energy market is heavily exposed to greenwashing. Some retailers sell "green tariffs" backed only by renewable energy certificates while continuing to invest most of their capital in fossil fuels. For consumers, the key is to distinguish suppliers that merely buy certificates from those that actually generate or directly contract green energy. Our guide to green energy suppliers reviews UK providers such as Ecotricity and Good Energy, which produce or purchase renewable electricity directly rather than relying on certificates alone.

Classic cases: Volkswagen and McDonald's

The most expensive greenwashing scandal to date remains Volkswagen's "dieselgate": the carmaker advertised "clean diesel" engines fitted with software that cheated emissions tests, a fraud first revealed in 2015 by the US Environmental Protection Agency that has cost the group more than €30 billion in fines and compensation. Another textbook case is McDonald's, which switched its European logo from red to green in 2010 to project an ecological image while still sourcing commodities linked to deforestation. Cosmetics brands, including Lush, have also faced criticism for marketing "all-natural" products that contain potentially harmful ingredients.

How to spot greenwashing: a consumer checklist

To avoid being lured in by greenwashing, you need to know how to recognise it. Before paying more for a "green" product, run through this checklist:

• Look for hard numbers: a serious claim states figures, scope and dates ("packaging made of 80% recycled plastic"), not empty adjectives like "eco" or "natural";
• Check the certification: trust only official third-party labels (EU Ecolabel, EU Organic, FSC, Energy Star), never logos created by the brand itself;
• Compare the message with the core business: if a company's main activity is emissions-intensive, one isolated "green" product does not change its overall impact;
• Be wary of instant neutrality: a "carbon neutral" claim based solely on offsets, with no verifiable reduction plan, is a red flag;
• Cross-check independent sources: reading sustainability reports and third-party reviews is the foundation of informed consumption.

Beware of green packaging

Like words such as "sustainable", "ecological" or "natural", the colour green is often used to create the illusion of environmental friendliness. The more sensitive consumers become to sustainability, the greener the packaging gets — without any real commitment behind it. This tactic also backfires: once consumers dig deeper and discover the truth, trust in the brand collapses.

Pay attention to the product composition

Read labels carefully and check what is actually in the product. Packaging that focuses on what is not in the product should raise suspicion, as it is often used to distract from the rest of the ingredients list. In cosmetics, a common trick is to spotlight one natural ingredient to suggest the product contains nothing harmful. Ingredients you may want to avoid include:

• parabens (methylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben, etc.);
• silicones (dimethicone, cyclomethicone, cyclotetrasiloxane, etc.);
• glycol ethers (phenoxyethanol, butylglycol, methylglycol, etc.);
• alkylphenols (heptylphenol, nonoxynol, methylphenol, etc.).

Beware of misleading eco-labels

Labels are frequently used to mislead consumers because they are hard to verify. Some brands invent their own "eco" seals, which have no legal standing and no independent verification behind them. A small green leaf or a green dot does not mean a product is part of a genuine sustainability approach. Labels that do guarantee a limited environmental impact include the official EU Ecolabel (the "EU flower") and the EU Organic logo. Precisely because of this confusion, the new European rules will ban sustainability labels that are not backed by official or third-party certification schemes.

Is greenwashing illegal? Regulation in the EU, UK and US

Increasingly, yes. Greenwashing falls under the long-standing prohibition of misleading advertising, but rules specifically targeting false green claims have hardened decisively in recent years on both sides of the Atlantic.

European Union: Directive 2024/825

Directive (EU) 2024/825, known as Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition, entered into force in March 2024. Member states had to transpose it by 27 March 2026, and its rules apply from 27 September 2026. Among other things, the directive:

• bans generic claims ("eco-friendly", "green", "environmentally friendly", "biodegradable") unless the company can prove recognised excellent environmental performance;
• bans claims of being "climate neutral" or similar when based solely on offsetting emissions;
• outlaws sustainability labels that do not come from official or third-party-verified certification schemes;
• requires claims about future performance to rest on public, measurable and independently verified commitments.

By contrast, the complementary Green Claims Directive proposal — which would have required prior verification of every environmental claim — stalled in 2025: the European Commission announced in June 2025 that it intended to withdraw it, and its future remains undecided. Europe's fight against greenwashing therefore rests on Directive 2024/825.

United Kingdom: Green Claims Code and DMCC Act

In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published its Green Claims Code in 2021: environmental claims must be truthful, clear, substantiated, comparable on a fair basis and consider the full life cycle of the product. What changed the game is the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act: since 6 April 2025, the CMA can enforce consumer law directly — without going to court — and impose fines of up to 10% of a company's global turnover for misleading green claims. In January 2026, the CMA extended its guidance with new rules covering green claims across the whole supply chain, from manufacturers to online platforms.

United States: the FTC Green Guides

In the US, environmental marketing is governed by the Federal Trade Commission's Green Guides, last fully revised in 2012: any environmental benefit claim must be truthful and substantiated, and generic claims such as "eco-friendly" are considered deceptive unless qualified. A broader update has been pending since 2022 and had still not been finalised as of mid-2026. In practice, federal enforcement has slowed, and US states — California and New York in particular — now lead legal action against companies over misleading environmental claims.

Greenwashing vs legitimate green marketing

Communicating a company's environmental progress is not only legal — it is desirable. Green marketing is the honest promotion of genuinely environmentally conscious products and services. The difference with greenwashing lies in the relationship between what is said and what is done:

To go further on climate topics, browse our other practical guides on the environment.