GREENWASHING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 1

Greenwashing and Sustainable Development

Course: Sociology of Development

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Abstract
The climate crisis can be seen as a result of what Marxists call the second contradiction of
capitalism. By providing specific examples of the negative impact that companies have had on
the environment through the lens of neo-Marxist theory, and taking a closer look at their business
strategies, this paper aims to provide a critical discussion on the unsustainability of capitalism
and the ways in which it contributes to environmental destruction.
Keywords: sustainability, Marxism, climate change, environmental sociology
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Greenwashing and Sustainable Development

Section 1: Theory
From a political economy perspective, crises are endemic to capitalism due to the very ways in
which it functions. According to Karl Marx (1848), what makes capitalist societies so vulnerable
to economic crises is the contradictions within its structures. His insights can be used in order to
describe the way in which these types of systems produce environmental issues. Marx posits that,
within the framework of capitalist societies, crises are not an aberration - they are in fact a
manifestation of capitalism’s underlying contradictions. In his view, capitalism is prone to such
crises due to overproduction and exploitation. “In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that,
in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity - the epidemic of overproduction.” (Marx,
1848). In Marxist thought, the second contradiction of capitalism is a theory that explains the
degradation of natural resources in capitalist societies. Due to its ever-expanding nature,
capitalism is bound to undermine itself by undervaluing as well as putting a strain on the very
resources it needs in order to sustain itself. The capitalist system is designed for infinite potential
for growth and production, which relies on the exploitation of labor and finite natural resources.

One theory that expands on Marxian thought is Immanuel Wallerstein’s (1974) World Systems
Theory. In essence, Wallerstein’s theory is based on the idea that the global economy is dynamic.
Therefore, rather than viewing the division of labor in terms of individual countries, we should
look at it on a larger, global scale. Wallerstein posits that a worldwide economic system was
born out of, and serves as an enabling factor of imperialism due to the capitalist logic of
expansion and relations between different countries. In Wallerstein’s view, every individual
country’s economy is dependent on the rest of the world. His theory focuses on division of labor
on a global scale, which plays into the relationship between different parts of the world, as well
as labor conditions in different countries and regions. Wallerstein outlines 4 categories in which
we can place different regions across the world: core, semi-periphery, periphery, external.
These categories illustrate where the regions are located within the world economy.

Core regions are those that reap the most benefits within global capitalism. These are the
“developed,” “Western” countries.
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Semi-peripheral regions can refer to declining core regions, as well as peripheral regions which
are on their way to becoming fully-fledged core regions that benefit from the world economy.
These are the developing countries.

Peripheral regions are regions without strong central governance. They do not benefit from the
world system. Those are third world countries.

External regions are regions that exist outside of the world system, without participating or
benefitting from it.

Wallerstein argues that, within the context of globalization, peripheral regions are exploited by
core regions.

Section 2: Case study - Greenwashing

Having discussed political-economic theoretical perspectives, this section of the paper

will focus on using them as a lens for critically analyzing the way companies in core regions
produce and market commodities.

Greenwashing is a marketing strategy that capitalizes on new demands from consumers who are
becoming increasingly environmentally conscious. It is defined as the process of conveying a
false impression about a product by making an unsubstantiated or misleading claim about its
supposed “environmental friendliness.”

A company that uses this tactic will usually take to exaggerating specific sustainable qualities of
a product while leaving out other relevant information deliberately. Buzzwords like green,
natural, eco, sustainable are often used to greenwash products. Such is the case with Coca Cola
Life and H&M Conscious collection.
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2.1. Coca Cola Life

Coca Cola Life was a low-calorie version of Coca Cola that has been discontinued as of 2020. It
was marketed as a “healthier” alternative to regular Coke, allegedly containing 35% less sugar
than Coca-Cola Classic (Koch 2016) due to the fact that Stevia was used as a sweetener.

This is a prime example of greenwashing. Swapping the usual red label for a green one in order
to associate the product with vigor, health and nature, as well as adding the word life, the Coca
Cola Company also advertised it as made from “natural” sources. Not only is Coca Cola Life not
a significantly healthier alternative to classic Coca Cola, their allegedly eco-friendly packaging,
dubbed the PlantBottle, still uses plastic, and does not negate the fact that the Coca Cola
Company is the world’s largest plastic polluters. In 2017, the environmental organization
Greenpeace conducted a report about Coca Cola’s usage of plastic. Their findings show that
almost 60% of Coca-Cola’s global packaging is single-use plastic bottles (Greenpeace 2017).
Furthermore, Greenpeace stated that Coca-Cola “has no commitment, target or timeline to reduce
the number of single-use plastic bottles it manufactures.” Taking these figures into account, the
company’s motives become evident - creating an environmentally conscious image in order to
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maximize profits by promoting products that are supposedly eco-friendly, obfuscating the true
extent of its impact on the environment.

2.2. H&M Conscious

In recent years, companies have been the culprit of a particularly dishonest type of
greenwashing: political greenwashing. Having moved on from classic forms of advertising, they
have adopted new ways to promote their products - associating them with progressive social
movements. This “woke brand” phenomenon involves companies sharing their vague opinions
regarding social, political and environmental issues for profit while actively exacerbating those
issues. There are many examples of this – exploitation, human rights violations and sweatshops
are at the core of fast fashion, and the same companies that are responsible for this market
themselves as champions of social equality and sustainability. For the purposes of this paper, the
focus will be on H&M.

In April 2019, Swedish fast fashion brand H&M launched their Conscious Collection, which
they advertised as a push towards a “more sustainable fashion future”. Like many companies,
H&M has set a target to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions within the next ten years (H&M
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Group 2019), pledging to use 100% sustainable and recycled materials by 2050. They claimed
that every piece in their new collection is made from sustainably sourced materials, such as
100% organic cotton, Tencel and recycled polyester. This claim is unsubstantiated, however, as
the evidence points in a different direction. The Norwegian Consumer Authority has argued that
H&M has provided “insufficient” information regarding the sustainability of their products,
warning consumers that the company is greenwashing this collection (Hitti 2019).

This is not surprising for a fast fashion brand. As one of the largest clothing brands in the world,
they have a largely negative impact on the environment due to greenhouse gas emissions, as well
as the release of other materials involved in the fashion making process such as dye. They have
also notably failed to meet their promise of providing a living wage to garment workers by 2018
(Turn Around H&M 2019). Furthermore, according to a Global Labour Justice report from 2018,
abuse against female H&M garment workers is a daily reality in Asian factories. H&M uses
sweatshops where both adults and children work 18 hours a day for extremely low wages – about
half of the average living costs in that area (Mayer 2016). This is a perfect example of the
harmful ramifications of offshoring (the extraction of cheaper labor from less developed
countries) and it serves as a consequence of the second contradiction of capitalism; the system
undermines itself by undervaluing of the very environmental conditions it needs in order to
propagate, over-extracting resources and harming the conditions of production and worker
health.

Conclusion

When a big, billion dollar corporation like H&M or Coca Cola is vocal about a social or
environmental issue, when they release an “environmentally conscious,” “ethical” line of
clothing or an eco-friendly line of Coke, it is purely performative, since their primary goal is
publicity and increasing profits, and they actively exploit workers and exacerbate the climate
crisis. Capitalism is designed to increase profits no matter what - it is based on a logic of infinite
expansion within a finite world, with finite resources. It is inherently unsustainable because it
relies on extracting cheap labor from peripheral nations and worker exploitation, and it actively
harms the environment.
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References
Engels, F., Marx, K. (2004) [1848]. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Marxists Internet
Archive. Retrieved May 5th 2022from:
https://www.marxists.org/admin/books/manifesto/Manifesto.pdf
Wallerstein, I. (1974). The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the
European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press, 1974.
Koch, M. (2016). Coca Cola goes green: the launch of Coke Life. Ivey Publishing. Retrieved
January 2021 from: https://www.reachcambridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Coca-cola-
case-study.pdf

Greenpeace (2017). Choke: The case against Coca-Cola. How the world’s biggest soft drinks
company is failing to address ocean plastic pollution. Retrieved January 2021 from:
https://storage.googleapis.com/gpuk-static/legacy/the-case-against-coca-cola.pdf

H&M Group (2019). Sustainability Performance Report 2019. Retrieved January 2021 from:
https://hmgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/HM-Group-Sustainability-Performance-
Report-2019.pdf

Turn Around H&M (2019). Shareholders of H&M fail to take responsibility for garment
workers’ wages. Retrieved January 2021 from: https://turnaroundhm.org/2019-01-31/

Global Labour Justice (2018). Gap: Gender Based Violence in Garment Supply Chains.
Retrieved January 2021 from: https://globallaborjustice.org/gap/

Robertson, L. (2020). How Ethical is H&M?. Good On You. Retrieved January 2021 from:
https://goodonyou.eco/how-ethical-is-hm/

Mayer, C. (2016). Fashion Victims. H&M in factory horror as workers endure ‘outrageous
sweatshop conditions’ making clothes which include Beyonce’s own line. The Sun. Retrieved
January 2021 from: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1851851/hm-in-factory-horror-as-workers-
endure-outrageous-sweatshop-conditions-making-clothes-which-include-beyonces-own-line/
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Hitti, N. (2019). H&M called out for “greenwashing” in its Conscious fashion collection.
Dezeen. Retrieved January 2021 from: https://www.dezeen.com/2019/08/02/hm-norway-
greenwashing-conscious-fashion-collection-news/