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ACCA Applied Knowledge · Business and Technology · Sustainable business practices

A company publishes a sustainability report stating it is 'committed to a greener future' and showing photographs of wind farms, but gives no targets, data or evidence of actual emission reductions, while most of its operations are carbon intensive. Which term best describes this practice?

This is greenwashing: the company gives vague, unsupported claims and imagery to appear environmentally responsible without providing targets, data or evidence of real improvement, which misleads stakeholders about its true performance.

  1. AStakeholder mapping
  2. BGreenwashingCorrect
  3. CMateriality assessment
  4. DTriple bottom line reporting

Explanation

Greenwashing is making misleading or unsupported claims about environmental performance to project a responsible image. Materiality assessment identifies significant issues, which this report does not do. Stakeholder mapping is a different analysis. Triple bottom line reporting would require actual data on all three dimensions.

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