What does "greenwash" mean?

A false or misleading picture of environmental friendliness used to conceal or obscure damaging activities.

What is a synonym for "greenwash"?

Common synonyms include: greenwashing.

Pronounced //ˈɡɹiːnwɒʃ//.

//ˈɡɹiːnwɒʃ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A false or misleading picture of environmental friendliness used to conceal or obscure damaging activities.
"People can be cynical about companies hiding behind green ideals, their radars finely tuned to detect a greenwash."

Verb

1
To portray with a false or misleading image of environmental friendliness so as to conceal or obscure damaging activities. intransitive, transitive
"But what happens more often is that media “greenwashes” dirty energy sources (coal, gas, nuclear power) as “clean”—a particularly dangerous notion because it belies the threat they pose to our planet and human health."

"By labeling their product as all-natural, the company is just trying to greenwash their wasteful production practices."

Blend of green (“environmentally friendly”) + whitewash (or green + -wash), coined by Jay Westerveld in 1986.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.