Greenwashing a Behaviour: What Makes You Choose It?
Dr. Anju Sharma MrsSustainability
(Inspired by the Forbes EZ Lynk write-up)
Greenwashing: Not just in your brochure.
✓ Sometimes it is product design.
✓ Sometimes it is a loophole.
✓ Sometimes it is a customer promise.
✓ Sometimes it is a digital tool that quietly says,
I only enabled the option. I did not choose how people used it.
A recent Forbes report on the DOJ demanding data from Apple, Google, Amazon & Walmart on more than 100K users linked to the EZ Lynk car-tuning app opens a bigger question than one company, one app, or one emissions case.
For me, the deeper sustainability question is:
When does innovation become evasion?
Every company loves the word innovation. It sounds clean, modern & future-ready. Yet innovation without behavioural accountability can become a polished escape route.
A product may be sold as freedom, tuning, diagnostics, flexibility or customer empowerment.
Yet when used differently, the same product may weaken emissions compliance, increase environmental harm & shift responsibility from manufacturer to user.
This is where greenwashing becomes more than false advertising, now it’s behaviour.
✓It begins when a company knows the grey zone & still chooses to live inside it.
✓It begins when ambiguity becomes profitable.
✓It begins when compliance is treated as a legal obstacle, not a design principle.
The EZLynk casestudy for new anatomy of greenwashing.
It’s no longer limited to “eco-friendly” claims on packaging.
It can sit inside software, app stores, aftermarket ecosystems, customer forums, data trails, hardware plugs & coded permissions.
Greenwashing: LabelToLogic
For serious companies, greenwashing risk is not just a reputation threat.
It can become a governance advantage.
The real question is no longer:
Can we market this as green?
It is:
Can we prove it cannot easily become dirty?
A responsible company must ask:
✓ Is misuse foreseeable?
✓ Are guardrails built in?
✓ Are users & distributors aligned?
✓ Is the claim backed by measurable proof?
Greenwashing is a behavioural choice.
It chooses convenience over correction, silence over warning, & clever wording over ethical clarity.
The future ESG question is not only:
What did you emit?
It is also:
What did you enable?
So the shift is clear:
✓From green claims to green controls.
✓From ESG storytelling to ESG engineering.
✓From “we didn’t intend misuse” to “we designed against misuse.
My view is simple:
Greenwashing is not born in marketing.
It is born in behaviour.
The cure is not a slogan.
The cure is cleaner courage”. Dr. Anju Sharma
MrsSustainability KtalystInsights™ KtalystKlues™ KtalystGreenLove Ktalyst5Ps5Es
https://lnkd.in/dbWH7Deb
Source / shared link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2026/05/14/government-demands-apple-and-google-identify-over-100000-users-of-car-app/
Originally published on LinkedIn on 2026-05-16 02:28:42: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn%3Ali%3Ashare%3A7461241187933241345
ForbesFrontlines – Episode 1
VisionariesOfValue – The Quiet Power of Choosing Tomorrow
There are moments in business where numbers don’t speak loud enough.
Where charts and KPIs pale before a single, haunting question:
Will we leave behind a world worth inheriting?
Forbes has long been the mirror for ambition, achievement, and acumen.
But today, it is also becoming a beacon—
Illuminating those who choose value not just for shareholders, but for the shared Earth beneath our feet.
In its 2024 State of Sustainability Report, Forbes didn’t just list trends.
It whispered a truth we can no longer ignore:
🌱 87% of CEOs now believe sustainability is the compass, not just the course.
⏳ 53% of Fortune 500 have tied leadership rewards to ESG—because integrity must be incentivized.
📊 Companies that embraced sustainability didn’t fall behind.
They surged ahead—28% stronger in market performance.
Their secret? They bet on forever.
And the stories Forbes tells?
They aren’t just about power.
They are about promise.
A CEO at Microsoft pledging carbon negativity,
A founder at Patagonia giving away his empire to the Earth,
A teenager in India—Garvita—saving 10 million litres of water,
Not with money, but with belief.
These aren’t headlines.
They are heartlines.
Why does Forbes care?
Because business is no longer about just what we can take.
It’s about what we choose to give back.
Because strategy today must not only forecast quarters—
It must forecast generations.
Because we’re not just building companies anymore—
We’re building consequences.
So, as we begin this Knowledge Series, let me ask you:
What kind of legacy are we funding?
What kind of silence will our success leave behind?
We begin here.
With the VisionariesOfValue.
Who plant trees under whose shade they may never sit.
Up next:
CLevelShift – Leadership at the Helm of Green Transformation
Originally published on LinkedIn on 2025-03-24 04:53:27: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn%3Ali%3Ashare%3A7309799484979372032
