Greenwashing: A Broken Business Model

Is greenwashing a business model? The paper is a conceptual effort to advance the discussions of greenwashing though the lenses of business model thinking. We argue that the business model literature can offer a useful supplement to existing conceptualisations of greenwashing by linking talk-action disconnects to the underlying business architecture. Greenwashing characterizes organisations that deliberately disconnect the promises to the stakeholders (i.e. value proposition) from the other elements of the business models. Moreover, we contend that the concept of greenwashing can contribute to the business model literature by drawing attention to organisations with imperfect business architectures, which fail to deliver on the value propositions communicated to their stakeholders. This study paves way for future research into how flawed business architectures cause greenwashing and how business models can be transformed to improve organisations’ relationships with their stakeholders