Greenwashing, but make it fashion

Abstract

The following thesis investigates the fast fashion market and the impact greenwashing has on consumers’ perceptions of well-known fashion brands. The participants were faced with a purchase decision where green and non-green options were available in different price ranges. Furthermore, they were asked to evaluate their preferred brand after being provided information regarding the brands’ green behavior. The three categories were: greenwashing, green virtue, and a control condition. The results show that there is a significant difference in reactions to greenwashing and green virtue information. Consumers evaluate their preferred fast fashion brand more negatively after reading information regarding greenwashing behavior. However, despite previous findings regarding consumers’ reactions to greenwashing (Nyilasy et al., 2014; De Jong et al., 2018; De Jong et al., 2020), this study only finds moderate negative reactions from consumers. When receiving information regarding the brand’s positive green behavior, consumers rate the brand more positively. However, the findings also show that consumers prefer greenwashed products over brown products, while true green products had the lowest preference. Consumers who consider themselves green tend to be more skeptical towards a brand when it is accused of both greenwashing and positive green behavior, indicating that true green consumers have a general skepticism towards fast fashion brands. Consumers who are frequent shoppers of a brand tend to evaluate the brand more positively when provided information regarding the brand’s greenness, regardless of the condition. Furthermore, the study finds that greenwashing could potentially have a positive impact on the fast fashion industry. Firstly, consumers are willing to pay a higher price for an item when given information regarding the brand’s green behavior. Moreover, consumers value the combination of price and sustainability, and are not severely impacted by credible claims regarding negative green behavior. This is in stark contrast to previous findings using fictional brands (De Jong et al., 2018; Nyilasy et al., 2014; De Jong et al., 2020), which indicate that consumers do not wish to purchase from greenwashing brands. Keywords: Greenwashing, green virtue, fast fashion, brand evaluation