Greenwashing in the food industry : reasons and solutions to avoid greenwashing practices in the corporate sector
Herva, Anni (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025060118884
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025060118884
Tiivistelmä
Sustainability has become one of the most discussed and covered societal topics in recent times. As our planet is facing massive and catastrophic changes due to climate change, businesses, in this case especially companies in the food industry, need to commit to changing their habits. Instead, they often try to capitalise on consumers’ increased interest in sustainability and commit greenwashing in different ways. Greenwashing is done when a company claims to be more sustainable or markets a product as having more sustainable qualities than what the reality is.
The goal of this thesis was to investigate greenwashing as a phenomenon, more specifically how it is used in the food industry, and study how aware of this phenomenon consumers are. This thesis covered the most common types of greenwashing and investigated how authorities especially in the EU area are tackling this problem. To learn more about the consumer awareness and consumers feelings towards this phenomenon, a survey was conducted as a part of this thesis process. Most of the survey respondents were Finnish and even though this study predominantly focused on the broader EU markets, this steered the focus of this study more specifically towards the Finnish markets. The theoretical framework and the survey results were utilized to produce key recommendations for companies in the food industry on what they should consider when marketing their products and how to make this a more sustainable process. The goal of these recommendations was to encourage companies and give them reasons why they should do their marketing in a more sustainable way.
The results of the study showed that greenwashing is a widely spread phenomenon that can be seen in all sectors of the food industry. The situation is gradually getting better as greenwashing is becoming more regulated and as consumer awareness of the phenomenon is on the rise. The study showed that greenwashing can have serious negative consequences for companies, which is why it is equally as beneficial for a company, consumers and the environment, if it moves onto more sustainable business and marketing practices.
The goal of this thesis was to investigate greenwashing as a phenomenon, more specifically how it is used in the food industry, and study how aware of this phenomenon consumers are. This thesis covered the most common types of greenwashing and investigated how authorities especially in the EU area are tackling this problem. To learn more about the consumer awareness and consumers feelings towards this phenomenon, a survey was conducted as a part of this thesis process. Most of the survey respondents were Finnish and even though this study predominantly focused on the broader EU markets, this steered the focus of this study more specifically towards the Finnish markets. The theoretical framework and the survey results were utilized to produce key recommendations for companies in the food industry on what they should consider when marketing their products and how to make this a more sustainable process. The goal of these recommendations was to encourage companies and give them reasons why they should do their marketing in a more sustainable way.
The results of the study showed that greenwashing is a widely spread phenomenon that can be seen in all sectors of the food industry. The situation is gradually getting better as greenwashing is becoming more regulated and as consumer awareness of the phenomenon is on the rise. The study showed that greenwashing can have serious negative consequences for companies, which is why it is equally as beneficial for a company, consumers and the environment, if it moves onto more sustainable business and marketing practices.