July 05, 2023

Greenwashing: Navigating the Risk

Authors:

Peter Pears,
Tim Baines,
Sam Eastwood,
Airlie Goodman,
Musonda Kapotwe,
James Taylor,
Pavlina Chopova-Leprêtre,
Dr. Patrick Scholl,
Dr. Johannes Weichbrodt, LLM (King's College London),
Marcel Hörauf,
Teresa Gerhold-Kempf, LLM (King's College London),
Henninger S. Bullock,
David A. Carpenter,
J. Paul Forrester,
Mark G. Hanchet,
Anna T. Pinedo,
Luiz Gustavo Bezerra,
Thomas Kollar

Other Author Oliver Williams, Trainee Solicitor, London

The risk of an accusation of “greenwashing” is now an important concern for many companies. Greenwashing is an ill-defined concept but, nevertheless, is increasingly a source of litigation and regulatory scrutiny – with more of both expected. It carries with it reputational, regulatory and litigation risks for which companies should be prepared. Whilst the risks are always context specific – varying by jurisdiction, industry and product - there are common themes. Here, we take an in-depth look at those themes and make suggestions for how organisations can think about mitigating greenwashing risk.