The Dark Side of Environmental Sustainability in Projects: Unraveling Greenwashing Behaviors

He, Qigai; Wang, Zilun; Wang, Ge; Xie, Jianxun; Chen, Zhe

doi:10.1177/87569728211042705

Cited by 31 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…Market actors seeking independent validation of an airline's climate-related financial risk, or its commitment to emissions abatement, would find little clarity in the ESG ratings market without recourse to additional information. There is an incentive for firms to present their environmental performance favourably, for the purposes of public relations (He et al, 2021) and accessing capital (e.g., Eliwa et al, 2019;Trinks et al, 2017). Ratings appear to do little to reduce information asymmetry in this context.…”

Section: Implications and Recommendations For The Esg Ratings Industrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Are environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings reliable indicators of emissions outcomes? A case study of the airline industry

Cregan,

Kelly,

Clinch

2023

Corp Soc Responsibility Env

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We analyse environmental ratings and emissions scores for commercial airlines from several major environmental, social and governance ratings providers. Specifically, we investigate whether emissions scores capture and predict absolute carbon emissions and emissions intensity levels, and whether scores are consistent across providers. This builds on existing literature by evaluating the predictive ability of ratings over significantly longer periods than past studies, examining within‐industry ratings disagreement for carbon emissions scores, and using an industry‐specific emissions intensity metric. Data covers 57 airlines from 2012 to 2021. Cross‐sectional and panel regressions are estimated to investigate whether ratings capture and predict carbon emissions data. We find no evidence that emissions scores capture or predict reported carbon emissions, and find that scores from different providers diverge substantially. Persistent shortcomings may undermine trust in the ratings industry, create trade‐offs between emissions abatement and ratings improvement, and hinder the incorporation of climate‐related information in capital allocation decisions.

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Section: Implications and Recommendations For The Esg Ratings Industrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Are environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings reliable indicators of emissions outcomes? A case study of the airline industry

Cregan,

Kelly,

Clinch

2023

Corp Soc Responsibility Env

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“…However, they did not address economic performance. Economic pressures which represent the large environmental costs contractors are expected to bear when constructing while fulfilling environmental sustainability goals were found to be related to the level of contractor greenwashing behaviors [9]. Greenwashing often refers to misleading communication to gain unwarranted environmental legitimacy [10].…”

Section: Literature Review 21 Sustainable Development and The Busines...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Building Contractors 2025: Analyzing and Forecasting Green Building Contractors’ Market Trends in the US

2022

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With population growth, the demand for building construction is continuously increasing. This comes at the price of the built environment where the building sector is contributing to large energy consumption and carbon footprint releases. To encourage sustainable construction, contractors need to see the market benefit of “going green”. Previous studies of green building contractors (GBCs) mainly relied on qualitative discussions and lacked studying the market performance which drives contractors’ decisions the most. This paper collects GBC revenue data from the Engineering News-Record magazine for the top 100 GBCs over a 13-year period and performs trend analysis to assess the market performance of GBCs and time series analysis to forecast future revenues. In addition, k-means clustering technique was used to divide the firms into subsets of similar behavior to understand growth trends for different firm sizes. The results show a continuous increase in green building revenues (GBRs), where commercial office buildings contribute the most to it. Furthermore, the firm ranks responsible for most of the growth are identified; mainly the top 9. Predictions show the expected steady increase in GBR in the upcoming years which is anticipated to reach 83 billion USD in 2025. The findings inform contractors considering executing green buildings by understanding the market trends and forecasted revenues. Moreover, contractors who are already in the green building business can use this information to increase their revenues in their respective market subset.

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“…From a normative perspective, an inclusive engagement should incorporate a wide range of project stakeholders' views to create value for them (Freeman et al, 2010). For LCE, this means project teams should engage genuinely with local communities to add local views to front-end decisions, not to satisfy planning procedures or greenwash the projects (He et al, 2022). One of the manifestations of the impact of local community views on front-end decisions is how local communities' needs are met in SV plans.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, 2010). For LCE, this means project teams should engage genuinely with local communities to add local views to front-end decisions, not to satisfy planning procedures or greenwash the projects (He et al. , 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local community engagement as a practice: an investigation of local community engagement issues and their impact on transport megaprojects' social value

Babaei

Locatelli

Sainati

2023

IJMPB

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PurposeTransport megaprojects often struggle to offer social value (SV) that meets local communities' needs. This problem is embedded in how local communities' views are captured and incorporated into SV plans through local community engagement (LCE). By problematising the literature, this article aims to identify LCE issues and their impacts on SV plans at the front-end of transport megaprojects.Design/methodology/approachThe theoretical lens of the study is the practice theory developed by Schatzki (2016, 2005). The authors conceptualised LCE as a practice and conducted 32 semi-structured interviews with UK practitioners. The authors collected data in three steps from three types of practitioners involved in LCE practice and SV planning: project managers, LCE experts and SV experts.FindingsThe authors identified 18 LCE issues with thematic analysis and clustered them into five themes. These issues impact LCE with five mechanisms. Findings show that a weak link between LCE and SV plans due to the issues reduces LCE to a tick-box exercise and presents a distorted view of local communities. This reduces SV plans to the bare minimum for project approval instead of offering relevant SV to local communities. Addressing the issues goes beyond changing the approach of project teams to engagement (from instrumental to normative) and requires changing the practices.Originality/valueFor the first time, the study uses practice theory to conceptualise LCE as a practice, following the notion of project as practice. The study problematises the literature to address the under-represented link between LCE and SV plans.

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The Dark Side of Environmental Sustainability in Projects: Unraveling Greenwashing Behaviors

Cited by 31 publications

References 79 publications

Are environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings reliable indicators of emissions outcomes? A case study of the airline industry

Are environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings reliable indicators of emissions outcomes? A case study of the airline industry

Green Building Contractors 2025: Analyzing and Forecasting Green Building Contractors’ Market Trends in the US

Local community engagement as a practice: an investigation of local community engagement issues and their impact on transport megaprojects' social value

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