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The purpose of this study is to explore how different types of environmental claims may affect the communication effectiveness of environmental advertising. Two two moderating variables include the perceived eco‐friendly image of the originating country and consumer involvement.

The examination involves the analysis of the responses of 1,200 subjects in Shanghai, China, to mock advertisements containing environmental claims using a 2 x 3 factorial design.

Environmental claims enhance the communication effectiveness of advertisements for both high‐ and low‐involvement services. For high‐involvement services, substantive environmental claims generate more favorable attitudinal responses than do associative environmental claims.

This research focused on a single Chinese city and on two service categories with contrasting degrees of involvement. While such a confinement can enhance the internal validity of the findings, their external validity has yet to be established.

These findings suggest that marketers should adopt a situational perspective by taking into account environmental claim type, country disposition, the degree of environmental consciousness of their target consumers, and service type when designing their environmental advertising campaigns.

Although a number of previous studies have focused on the application of environmental claims to advertise products, similar investigation into how these claims may help advertise services is virtually non‐existent. In this respect, the present study can be viewed as the first empirical work devoted to closing this research gap.

Environmental claims in advertising (green ads) provide competitive advantage to firms. This study aims to understand what kinds of environmental claims advertisers make in a developing nation like India. Further, implications for policymakers and advertisers are discussed.

A content analysis of 279 green print advertisements was conducted using a comprehensive list of claim categories identified from the advertising literature. These categories included advertiser profile; ad promotions – type, sector, appeal; claim – nature, type, focus, validity, emphasis; executional elements – illustration setting, presenter, format/structure and environmental issue, identified from past studies and practitioner interviews.

The findings suggest that majority of the advertisers using green ads are manufacturers. Consumer durables, real estate and power sector together constitute one-third of the total green ads. Further, most of the green ads are aimed at influencing consumer behaviour. Though most of the ads contain strong emphasis on environmental attributes, they are ambiguous. A large proportion of claims are credence in nature and lack product identification through environmental certifications. This study also identifies areas of concern including interpretation of the term green, use of multiple certifications, greenwashing and advertisers showing environmental responsiveness through event-based green advertising. Policy recommendations are made based on green advertising regulations governing them across developed and other developing countries.

The content analysis of the green advertisements in this study was limited to newspaper advertisements within the print media. Future studies may use advertisements from different media types, such as the internet ads and television commercials, to examine the effect of media type on the nature of green advertisements. It would also be interesting to examine the role of regulations as a moderator, influencing the claims made in green advertisements.

The findings of this study provide a comprehensive overview of the nature of green advertisements in India. Marketers may use these insights to design effective green advertising strategies.

Most of the extant literature has examined environmental claims in the context of developed nations, where regulations are well established. Very few studies have examined this issue in the context of developing countries. In addition, most of the previous studies have focused on specific issues like greenwashing, appeals and execution elements. The present study contributes to green advertising by examining environmental claims in case of a developing nation like India using a comprehensive list of claim categories. This study also identifies areas of concern and suggests recommendations for policymakers and advertisers.

Examines the differences in types of environmental claims used in advertisements in Australia, Canada, the UK and USA. The advertisements are examined using a content analysis schema with four categories (product orientation, process orientation, image orientation or environmental fact) which have been developed and reported in the literature. The four types of environmental advertisements can be “compressed” into two groups: substantive claims (product and process based) and posturing claims (image and environmental fact based). Suggests that claims in advertisements may be a proxy for firm behaviour and therefore firms using substantive claims in their advertisements are more environmentally involved than firms using posturing claims in their advertisements. Finds that US advertisements use the most posturing claims and least substantive claims, with Australian advertisements using the most substantive claims and least posturing claims. This may suggest that US firms (i.e. the companies making these claims) are less environmentally involved compared with firms in the three other countries examined.

This paper aims to examines whether firms’ eco-friendly advertising claims are supported by environmentally friendly behavior.

The paper develops a game theory model to determine the circumstances under which firms’ environmental claims will be supported by the adoption of best environmental practice. Least squares regression is used to test major theoretical implications.

The theoretical model suggests that the credence good nature of un-monitored environmental claims prohibits consumer validation; firms have an incentive to advertise green but no incentive to adopt best environmental practice. Third-party monitoring transforms the game, making eco-friendly outcomes possible. Empirical models based on North American data suggest that firm profit rates are related to verifiable environmental claims and to easily accessible external ratings of environmental performance.

Unlike previous game theoretical models for similar goods, the eco-friendly outcome does not require a repeated game. The importance of the single period game is that continued patronage is not required for the firm to produce goods containing the desired attributes.

Considers reasons why consumer response has, at best, been mixed with regard to “Green” marketing. Proposes reasons why consumer response has not been overwhelmingly positive and then, based on a review of key research findings, presents guidelines for the development of three components of environmental product advertising: the specificity of the environmental claim, the level of emphasis given the environmental claim and the context for presenting the claim.

Since a significant source of food waste on the consumer end is the reluctance to purchase or consume imperfect products, it is vital for businesses to learn how to affiliate their products with social and ecological causes. This study explores whether firms' communication of suboptimal food information to reduce food waste affects consumer perceptions and behaviors based on social exchange theory.

A factorial between-subjects experiment designed with 4 (environmental claims) × 3 (suboptimal food) is used to design 12 scenarios. The measurement scales of variables are adapted from the literature. ANCOVA and structural equation modelling (SEM) analyses were performed to test study hypotheses using a total of 745 valid samples collected via a web-based questionnaire after testing manipulation checks, reliability and validity.

Among the four types of environmental claims, product orientation and environmental fact claims improve consumers' attitudes, ethical judgments and purchase intentions toward suboptimal food. The effect of ethical judgments on purchase intention is higher than that of attitudes. Additionally, purchase intention is a vital predictor of sustainable consumption and plays a significant mediating role between the variables.

The findings of this study address gaps in the literature, which lacks investigations into the effects of communication information about suboptimal food on consumer attitudes and behaviors. Unlike traditional questionnaires using scale items to measure independent variables, the quasi-experimental design with stimulus materials used in this study can reveal the varied effects of different environmental claims.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore how Instagram can be used as a communication channel in green marketing digital mix through content analysis of posts published on the official Instagram account of bio&bio, the first Croatian organic food store.

Method: Using a case study approach, qualitative content analysis was implemented in the period from January to May 2020. A total of 93 textual posts published on the official bio&bio Instagram account were analysed and then categorised using Carlson, Grove and Kangun's categorisation of the following five types of environmental claims – product orientation, process orientation, image orientation, environmental orientation and combination.

Findings: Instagram in the first line serves as the promotion channel. Although Instagram de-emphasises textual description in favour of image use, which makes it different from other social media platforms, this study showed how companies can send effective green messages using the appropriate environmental-oriented claims to their audience and in that way raise the awareness about their products and position themselves as good corporate citizens.

Research limitations: The results derived from this case study cannot be generalised since they are based on a single case in one country.

Originality/value of paper: The paper represents the first research on how Instagram can be used as a communication channel in the context of green marketing digital mix in the Republic of Croatia. The results derived from this case study can serve as a ground floor for future researches on how companies can use Instagram as a communication channel embedded in green marketing digital mix.

The purpose of this paper is to offer some reflection on the importance of reliable green claims to encourage sustainable production. The role of market is fundamental. Businesses and consumers are both involved in achieving environmental protection objectives. There is the real risk of the phenomenon of so-called green washing or misleading marketing. The problem arises of verifying the reliability of green claims to prevent competitive elements from become distorting factors of competition.

Based on the analysis of a European programme, the author shows how in Italy there is a dangerous lack of consumer protection. For this reason the European and national authorities have provided that green claims must be true, reliable, verifiable and comparable, but it is necessary that consumers be protected, through a certification system that makes it possible to certify the veracity of green claims. The problem is that a number of certification systems have been adopted in Europe which undermine the competitiveness of the market for green products.

This work aims to identify the tools necessary to make green indications more reliable, but above all to create a common methodology on which to base them. In this direction, companies wishing to advertise the ecological characteristics of their products should be required to provide the supporting demonstrations on the basis of a standard methodology assessing their actual environmental impact.

This work will examine the problem of green washing and the importance of reliable green claims for environmental protection. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the original work of the author and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.

Financial assurance rules, also known as financial responsibility or bonding requirements, foster cost internalization by requiring potential polluters to demonstrate the financial resources necessary to compensate for environmental damage that may arise in the future. Accordingly, assurance is an important complement to liability rules, restoration obligations, and other regulatory compliance requirements. The paper reviews the need for assurance, given the prevalence of abandoned environmental obligations, and assesses the implementation of assurance rules in the United States. From the standpoint of both legal effectiveness and economic efficiency, assurance rules can be improved. On the whole, however, cost recovery, deterrence, and enforcement are significantly improved by the presence of existing assurance regulations.

Consumer scepticism about the credibility of green advertising around the world is growing. The article aims to provide a comprehensive assessment and trend analysis of green advertising practices of international firms over a 20‐year period.

The study identifies 473 international green advertisements during the 1988‐2007 period and content‐analyses them on five major axes: advertiser profile, targeting features, message aspects, copy characteristics, and situation points.

The content analysis reveals significant trends in all major areas examined and identifies important interaction effects between certain dimensions of green advertisements.

The findings could be augmented by combining them with changes in the external environment, input from consumers about advertising effectiveness, the views of advertisers and advertising agencies, and secondary data referring to the performance of the specific company/product advertised.

Green advertising research mainly focuses on domestic rather than international advertisements; examines important issues in isolation from other issues; partially analyses message, copy, and situation characteristics; and covers a short period. This study fills these gaps by systematically evaluating international green advertisements over a long period and using an integrated framework of analysis that is based on the extant literature. It also explores potential interaction effects between key dimensions describing these advertisements.