Greenwashing? Nearly 70% of top-level executives admit overstating sustainability goals

But 92% believe greenwashing is “accidental.”

Close to seven in 10 top-level executives in Singapore said their businesses either overstated or inaccurately represented their sustainability initiatives, a CXO Sustainability Survey showed.

Most of these executives (92%) believe greenwashing is accidental (i.e., when companies cannot effectively measure results or progress, they tend to overstate their sustainability efforts), which emphasised “the need for data-driven systems that deliver actionable insights to help them understand where and how to implement sustainability initiatives that drive the highest impact, and accurately measure progress.”

More than five in 10 (55%) of local executives already have a measurement programme for their sustainability efforts in place, compared to 37% of global respondents. 

More than half (55%) also believe that having access to advanced measurement tools would be very helpful in furthering their organizations’ sustainability efforts, compared to 47% of global respondents.

The survey was commissioned by Google Cloud and conducted by Harris Poll. Participants of the survey are 1,476 top-level executives in 16 markets, including four Asian markets – Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.