Greenwashing: uma análise das denúncias de stakeholders sobre os apelos de sustentabilidade das organizações

Abstract

Companies, aiming to meet the needs and expectations of stakeholders, aim to demonstrate environmental concern. However, behind this apparent concern, many companies deceive investors and the public: a practice known as greenwashing. Given this, the general objective of this study is to analyze the nature and evolution of greenwashing practices in Brazilian companies and understand how stakeholders denounce these practices. To achieve the purpose of the research, this study addressed the following aspects: (i) describe the complaints of greenwashing practiced by companies in Brazil; (ii) classify complaints by type of greenwashing, (iii) create a new typology suited to stakeholder concerns about greenwashing in Brazil. The source analyzed by this study is the complaints of greenwashing made before CONAR (National Council for Advertising Self-Regulation), between 2010 and 2021, in cases classified as “Sustainability Appeal”; these complaints were made by consumers, competitors or by CONAR itself. The results of this study showed that the main types of complaints are related to narratives without evidence and to misleading information and untruths on product labels. This work contributes to the new typology built by the author, with a renewing approach, and can be used both for new studies in Brazil and in the world.