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Abstract: Volkswagen AG, the second biggest car-manufacturer of the world has admitted in September 2015 that they used special defeat devices in their 2.0 liter diesel cars to pass the emission tests. This kind of greenwashing is not only immoral but a legal case as well. The scandal has relevant consequences not only for the firm itself but for the automotive industry and for the whole society. The major contribution of the paper is to show the uncontrollable ripple effect of the scandal which may last longer than the original case, and therefore shows that greenwashing doesn't worth it.
Keywords: greenwashing, Volkswagen, ripple effect
1The meaning and forms of greenwashing
As in the last five decades environmentally conscious - or at least environmentally sensitive- consumer groups have emerged, companies tried to serve them with their green(er) products and services - however some companies only tried to take advantage on it and sold their traditional products with green claims and green slogans without any real green performance. This -partly or totally - deliberate misleading activity of firms are examined in the marketing literature more frequently.
The term "greenwashing" has been used from 1989, as a combination of two words: green and brainwashing.1 The meaning of this new term was easily understood when in 1990 there was a trade-fair in Washington where the most polluters companies e.g. DuPont, the American Nuclear Society and the Society of Plastics Industry tried to show themselves as green organizations 2
According to Greenpeace, greenwashing is "the cynical use of environmental themes to whitewash corporate misbehavior."3 On their homepage it is also described as "the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service".4 Greenpeace identifies 4 forms of greenwashing: (1) dirty business, when firms show some green steps but basically their production is unsustainable; (2) ad bluster means exaggerated green claims in marketing communication when companies spend more money on advertising than on real green actions; (3) political spin reflects to the hidden lobby against stricter environmental regulation; (4) when firms communicate their environmental actions as virtues although they only fulfil the legal requirements.
Lyon and Maxwell (2011) define greenwashing as the selective disclosure of positive information without full...