After Greenwashing: New Directions on the Symbol and Substance of Environmental Responsiveness

Firms issue environmental reports, build green buildings, create new job titles, develop green technologies, adopt environmental policies or participate in government green schemes as signals of their environmental responsiveness. Some of this symbolic activity gives managers, consumers, investors, regulators and other stakeholders valuable information about firms’ environmental quality, enabling them to make more efficient decisions. However, many of these symbols are greenwash, that is, deliberate or selective attempts to communicate positive environmental information not matched by improved environmental impacts (Delmas & Burbano 2011; Marquis & Toffel 2012) or superficial corporate environmentalism that is all style and no substance (Forbes & Jermier 2012). Understanding the drivers, dynamics and consequences of symbolic corporate environmentalism is a pressing research challenge. In this panel symposium, we will convene an interactive discussion on new directions for the theory and practice of symbol...