Abstract
The traditional paradigm for investigating, studying, and combating greenwashing has been to focus on claims by companies engaged in marketing consumer products or services to individual consumers (i.e., business-to-consumer, or B-to-C, communications) and the effects of those claims on consumers. But the current clean tech revolution has greatly increased commerce in green technologies, much of which is business-to-business (“B-to-B”). This shift calls for a new paradigm in understanding greenwashing. Rather than limiting the focus to deceptive marketing of consumer products to individual consumers, we must contemplate a wider variety of cases that include representations made to green commercial consumers (B-to-B communications) and legal actions brought by and on behalf of commercial consumers. This chapter builds on the author’s previous arguments for this broader view of greenwashing by providing threat matrices that can be used as identification tools. They can help eliminate a current blind spot and provide the broader vantage point necessary to identify and understand new instances of greenwashing.
Portions of this chapter appeared in volume 38 of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law.
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Lane, E.L. (2014). Greenwashing 2.0: Identifying a New Paradigm Through B-to-B Threat Matrices. In: Cahoy, D., Colburn, J. (eds) Law and the Transition to Business Sustainability. Perspectives on Sustainable Growth. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04723-2_8
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