Greenwashing
What is Greenwashing?
Greenwashing is the practice of making misleading or exaggerated claims about the environmental credentials of a product, service, or organisation — presenting a superficially "green" image that doesn't reflect genuine sustainable practice. In travel, greenwashing appears across every sector: hotels adding recycling bins and calling themselves "eco," airlines marketing their newest aircraft as "sustainable" while growing capacity, tour operators advertising trips as "carbon neutral" on the basis of low-quality offset purchases, and destinations claiming environmental status without measurable protection standards.
The growth of genuine sustainable travel demand has unfortunately been accompanied by a proportional growth in greenwashing, requiring travellers to apply healthy scrutiny to environmental claims. Red flags include vague language ("eco-friendly," "green," "sustainable") without specific metrics or third-party verification; offset claims without certification; and sustainability messaging from organisations whose core business model is directly in tension with the claims being made.
Example of Greenwashing
The brochure called it "carbon-neutral." Digging into the footnotes, James found the claim was based on purchasing offsets from a forestry project that third-party auditors had subsequently found to be of low additionality — the forest would likely have been protected regardless of the offset payments. The offset credit had cost the operator $1.20 per tonne at a time when rigorous offset credits cost $15+. He chose a different operator and paid more. The difference was worth the due diligence.