Habitual Greenwashing Behavior Of Listed Companies

With the increasing concern of the public and investment institutions on environmental protection,ESG rating and sustainable development,the social environment has put forward higher environmental protection requirements for enterprises.Enterprises need to consider environmental performance while pursuing economic benefits,"green" has become a common label of social responsibility for enterprises.However,a green label does not equal a green kernel.Remove the label,and some enterprises are exposed as "greenwashing" behavior with false social responsibility.What is more serious is that greenwashing has been implanted into the development model of enterprises and become a habitual means of some enterprises.In the name of environmental protection,those enterprises who are accustomed to greenwashing have created a mirage of sustainable development by repeatedly greenwashing.This trend,if unchecked,will have a serious negative impact on businesses,investors,consumers and the green market as a whole.In this context,this paper takes the Coca Cola Company as a case study,and by studying the causes of its habitual greenwashing behavior and the market reaction after its exposure,this paper proposes countermeasures and suggestions on habitual greenwashing behavior,which can provide a significant enlightening role for our country to guard against the risks of greenwashing and promote the standardized development of green economy.In this study,based on the GONE theoretical model,the reasons for Coca-Cola’s habitual greenwashing behavior are analyzed from four aspects.As far as greed factor analysis is concerned,the profit-seeking nature of enterprises is the intrinsic factor of greenwashing behavior.The more fraudulent profits enterprises gain through greenwashing,the more easily greedy psychology expands,thus forming habitual greenwashing behavior.From the results of opportunity factor analysis,the lack of laws and weak supervision leads to the low violation cost of greenwashing;Food safety standard in our country is not clear and there is big difference with international standard;Greenwashing itself is not easy to identify,and there is serious information asymmetry in the green market.All these objective factors create space and opportunities for habitual greenwashing.The analysis results of the need factor show that Coca-Cola,as an industry leader,is expected to make great contributions to sustainable development.However,it is often accused of being a garbage producer.Therefore,in order to meet the external regulatory requirements and meet the public’s expectations on its performance of social responsibility,it has become a top priority for Coca-Cola to submit a "qualified and goodlooking" corporate social responsibility report.Analysis of exposure factors shows that even when greenwashing is exposed,legal penalties are rare,and non-mandatory penalties from civil society are usually very limited and brief.At the same time,industrial ripple effects have exacerbated habitual greenwashing.Secondly,the paper adopts the event study method to analyze the market reaction after the exposure of Coca Cola’s double standards,intentional concealment and other greenwashing behaviors.The results show that the capital market has no obvious disciplinary effect on the greenwashing behavior of transnational corporations such as Coca Cola due to the influence of the means and region.This indicates that although investors and the public have paid attention to enterprises with greenwashing behavior,they have not been sustained.The phenomenon of greenwashing and habitual greenwashing behavior of enterprises have not attracted enough attention from investors and even the whole society.Finally,based on the above research results,from both internal and external aspects of enterprises,it is proposed to promote the government supervision and media exposure,establish reasonable expectations for enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities,improve the enterprise internal control system,construct the green bleaching early warning system and other prevention and control of habitual greenwashing behavior.