SafetyInsights.org

Can stakeholder pressures encourage greenwashing in the adoption of environmental management systems (EMS) and practices? Perhaps so, finds a 2018 paper.

I haven’t posted much on environmental science/management, so found this pretty interesting. They undertook a literature review and surveyed 232 Enviro Managers from European companies.

Note – corporate greening is the pursuit and adoption of environmentally responsible practices, whereas greenwashing is an “external projection of a positive image of a firm, which is not reflected in its internal behaviors regarding environmental issues”.

Overall they found that:

·        Institutional pressures generally strengthen the internalisation and adoption of EMS

·        But the influences of stakeholders can either “support the integration of these practices or encourage their superficial adoption”

·        Pressure from suppliers and shareholders generally contributed to corporate greening, customer and industrial association pressure tended to encourage greenwashing, e.g. “the superficial and misleading adoption of environmental practices”

·        Product quality-oriented strategies also positively influenced EMS internalisation

They note that, “stakeholder pressure for the adoption of a certified EMS does not necessarily strengthen environmental practices and performance in this area” and that, in certain cases, “such pressure could even increase the contradictions between the appearance of corporate greening through certifiable EMSs and the actual practices inside the organization”.

Further, “Many managers tend to use certifiable EMSs as a marketing tool rather than a set of practices to improve environmental performance, while the environmental benefits of EMS largely depend on their internalization in daily activities”.

Finally, they argue that “institutional pressures are not monolithic and need to be analyzed in relation to the different stakeholders involved”.

As expected, other research has linked greenwashing also to safety systems (‘safewashing’), like annual performance reports and safety management system certifications the like. Examples on my site.

Ref: Testa, F., Boiral, O., & Iraldo, F. (2018). Journal of Business Ethics, 147, 287-307.

Study link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-015-2960-2

LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benhutchinson2_can-stakeholder-pressures-encourage-greenwashing-activity-7134680326844411904-6G6w?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop