Ecolabels and Greenwashing: Which factors influence the way consumers perceive and differentiate between official and fraudulent ecolabels?

Details

Supervisors

Belleflamme, Paul

Faculty

Louvain School of Management
Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de gestion, à finalité spécialisée
Master [120] : ingénieur de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

Ecolabels have gained in popularity since their appearance, leading to a veritable proliferation of all types of ecolabels. Among them, there are self-declared ecolabels. These types of ecolabels, in contrast to official ecolabels, do not receive any external certification and manufacturers can self-assign ecolabels to mislead consumers by giving the impression that their product is environmentally friendly. Through this study, we will discover if consumers can differentiate between official and fraudulent ecolabels. The study aims to explore the factors that might explain why some consumers can make the difference while others cannot. After quantitative analyses to test if the age and the greenwashing knowledge of consumers but also if the product’s price and the ecolabel’s color can influence how consumers distinguish ecolabels, our results showed that none of these factors has a significant influence. The vast majority of consumers tend to fall into the greenwashing trap, choosing the fraudulent ecolabel as the one they perceive as official. However, the study revealed that the green color has an influence, not on the ability to distinguish ecolabels, but on perceived credibility, as consumers tend to give more credibility to the ecolabel when they see it in green than in black. Based on results showing that consumers are unable or willing to draw a difference between the different types of labels, the study highlights the need to find an alternative system to ecolabels. Confronted with too many ecolabels, consumers are confused and no longer know who to trust. This is why the study also looked at the eco-score, to measure consumers' trust in this indicator of the environmental impact of products, and to see whether it could replace ecolabels in the future. It appeared that consumers tend to trust the eco-score and that this trust is linked to their intention to purchase eco-scored products. In addition, nearly 75% of respondents answered they would prefer the eco-score to ecolabels. It therefore seems essential to replace ecolabels with a single indicator, such as the eco-score. This constitutes an interesting research path to explore in the future.