Identifying and prioritizing the antecedents and consequences of the greenwashing phenomenon: A mixed approach

Introduction: Environmental pollution resulting from human production and consumption is one of the issues widely recognized by organizations in this field as a threat to humanity. Today, with the increase of customers' awareness of environmental concerns, this issue has become so important that, in recent decades, it has attracted the attention of many scientific and political groups. These growing concerns have caused companies to shift their marketing strategies towards green marketing. Green marketing is a very important tool to attract customers who are environmentally friendly and seek to buy products that are environmentally friendly. Through green marketing, companies gain a competitive advantage over irresponsible companies. Along with the companies that are determined to provide environmentally friendly products and consider this as their duty and social responsibility, there are certain companies that try to deceive customers just by claiming to produce a green product. This issue is a challenge to cope with. In fact, some companies have used methods such as greenwashing to mislead consumers to have the benefits of the claim that they pay attention to environmental issues.
Methodology: This research is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches under an inductive paradigm. It is applied in terms of purpose and sequential exploratory in terms of nature and method. The statistical population of the study consisted of 25 marketing managers and business management professors selected based on the principle of theoretical adequacy and using a purposive sampling method. In the qualitative section, a semi-structured interview was used to collect the data, and its validity and reliability were confirmed using the CVR coefficient and the Kappa-Cohen test. The data obtained from the interview were analyzed with the Atlas.ti software and a content analysis method. Through coding, the antecedents and consequences of greenwashing were identified. In the quantitative part, the Delphi questionnaire was used to collect the data, the validity and reliability of which were confirmed by content validity testing and retesting. Also, using the fuzzy Delphi method, the prioritization of the antecedents and the greenwashing consequences was done to identify its most important factors and consequences.
Results and Discussion: The results of the present study consist of qualitative and quantitative findings. In the qualitative part, ten factors were identified as the antecedents and factors that create the brand greenery in the food industry. According to the findings, these factors are include the superficiality and ignorance of the society about green products, increasing profitability, competition pressure on industries, attracting the attention of stakeholders, social media pressure, government rules and regulations, raising the company's reputation, facilitating of entering new and global markets, covering the weaknesses in the green activities, and democratization of managers. The research findings also show that the benefits of brand greenwashing include ten factors. They consist of endangering the entire market, reducing green customer satisfaction, reducing customer trust in green brands, negative word of mouth advertising, elimination from the competition, reducing green buying intentions, customer’s devaluation of the company, negative image in the public mind, decline in the popularity of green products, and the loss of customer loyalty. The findings of the quantitative part of the research include prioritizing brand pre-washing and post-greens. The findings of the quantitative part of the research show that the increase of the company’s profitability and reputation and social media pressure are the most important antecedents or factors that cause brand greenery. Factors such as reduced customer trust in green brands, negative word of mouth advertising and reduced green customer satisfaction are the most important consequences of brand greenery.
Conclusion: Greenwashing gives consumers the feeling that the organization is taking the necessary procedures for responsible environmental management. Increasing competition, resource scarcity, population growth, environmental pollution, the need to produce ecological products and green business activities have forced companies to integrate environmental issues with marketing efforts and strategies. Therefore, one of the topics discussed a lot regarding environmental issues is green marketing. Green marketing seeks to open up a vision for marketing that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. In the meantime, some companies have taken measures to reduce the final effects that they can have on the environment. In these measures, companies carry out their activities in the production, distribution, promotion and pricing of products in such a way as to minimize environmental damage and lead consumers to environmentally friendly behavior. Many companies, however, are not able to take these steps to offer environmentally friendly products. On the other hand, they cannot ignore the special benefits of green marketing, so they try to reap the benefits of greenwashing.