What does "greenwashing" mean?

The practice by people, organizations and states of presenting themselves as environmentally-friendly and progressive in order to disguise or divert attention away from their actual environmentally damaging behavior.

What is a synonym for "greenwashing"?

Common synonyms include: greenwash.

Greenwashing

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
The practice by people, organizations and states of presenting themselves as environmentally-friendly and progressive in order to disguise or divert attention away from their actual environmentally damaging behavior. uncountable, usually
"Fossil fuel lobbyists are trying to water down planned EU rules to stop “investment greenwashing’ by setting science-based criteria for any investment which lays claim to being environmentally sustainable."

Verb

1
present participle and gerund of greenwash form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms

greenwash

Example

More examples

"That's nothing more than greenwashing."

Etymology

Blend of green + whitewashing (or green + -wash + -ing).

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