The DOI matches its Crossref record; 53 of the 53 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Grey zone in – greenwash out. A review of greenwashing research and implications for the voluntary-mandatory transition of CSR
Open accessAbstract
As public concern over greenwashing has grown in the last two decades, academic research has increased correspondingly, and there is now a substantial body of research addressing issues related to greenwashing. In this paper, we therefore review and analyze greenwashing research, to provide an evaluation of trends and progress in the field and a synthesis of the empirical and conceptual results presented in existing studies. Our main finding leading to our theory contribution is the criticism raised in greenwashing research that the entirely voluntary CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) approach facilitates the diffusion of greenwashing. The voluntary idea of CSR is still prevalent in the CSR literature and appears to be a grey-zone that creates space for misleading ‘green’ communication. Consequently, we propose that greenwashing could be better prevented with a combination of voluntary and mandatory aspects. The new paradigm should promote creative and effective corporate CSR initiatives, while at the same time design the limits and the rules for their accomplishments and communication, as firms would risk breaching legislation when overstretching CSR messages.
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Cites
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“” With the exception of Mahoney, Thorne, Cecil, and LaGore (2013), who suggest that voluntary CSR reports are generally a sign of high-quality CSR and not greenwashing, all the other articles we analyzed look at the voluntary dimension of CSR, supported by the majority of CSR definitions (Dahlsrud, 2008), as one of th…”
BackgroundResultThe Means and End of Greenwash
Lyon, T. P., & Montgomery, A. W. (2015) · Organization & Environment · doi:10.1177/1086026615575332 · Cited by 1,636 · cited 5×
“Following Lyon and Montgomery (2015), more research is needed to acknowledge the variety of forms and mechanisms related to greenwashing to better understand its meaning.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialGreenwash: Corporate Environmental Disclosure under Threat of Audit
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“…greenwashing increases consumers’ confusion about corporate CSR (Furlow, 2010) and it seems to have a negative effect on consumers’ brand evaluation (Parguel et al., 2011), consumers’ opinion about corporate environmental sustainability (Mason & Mason, 2012), consumer green trust (Chen & Chang,…”
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Cited by
Santos, C., Coelho, A., & Marques, A. (2024) · Management Review Quarterly · doi:10.1007/s11301-023-00337-5 · Cited by 235
An Integrated Framework to Assess Greenwashing
Nemes, N., Scanlan, S. J., Smith, P., Smith, T., Aronczyk, M., Hill, S., Lewis, S. L., Montgomery, A. W., Tubiello, F. N., & Stabinsky, D. (2022) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su14084431 · Cited by 212
Rehman, A. U., Kumar, S., Alghafes, R., Broccardo, L., & Patel, A. K. (2025) · Business Strategy and the Environment · doi:10.1002/bse.4300 · Cited by 36
Janik, A., & Ryszko, A. (2025) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su18010017 · Cited by 28
Does Greenwashing Wash Away Gen Z's Green Purchase Intention?
Di Pillo, F., Palombi, G., & Strazzullo, S. (2025) · Business Strategy and the Environment · doi:10.1002/bse.70064 · Cited by 20
Metadata
- Authors
- Gatti, L., Seele, P., & Rademacher, L.
- Venue
- International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility
- Published
- 2019-08-17
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 2366-0066 (ISSN-L)
- 2366-0074
- OpenAlex
- W2968606082
- Cited by
- 285
- References
- 53
- FWCI
- 30.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Grey zone in – greenwash out. A review of greenwashing research and implications for the voluntary-mandatory transition of CSR. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1186/s40991-019-0044-9
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- Gatti, L., Seele, P., & Rademacher, L. (2019). Grey zone in – greenwash out. A review of greenwashing research and implications for the voluntary-mandatory transition of CSR. International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40991-019-0044-9
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
