Quantified sustainability disclosures linked to brand authenticity, but greenwashing doubts persist

When companies attach hard numbers to their environmental claims, consumers appear to read those figures as a signal of genuine commitment. A cross-sectional survey published in Discover Sustainability reports that quantified environmental sustainability disclosures — labelled QSI-E by the researchers — are strongly associated with how authentic and ethical environmentally conscious consumers judge a brand to be. The same numbers, however, showed no significant direct association with reduced perceptions of greenwashing, indicating that measurable impact figures alone did not dispel consumer suspicion in this sample.

The research team, led by Hari Susanta Nugraha and colleagues, conceptualised QSI-E not as a formal sustainability reporting framework but as a communication strategy as perceived by consumers: sustainability information that is measurable, accessible and credible. The results were striking in one direction. Quantified sustainability disclosure showed a very strong association with Perceived Corporate Green Authenticity (standardised β = 0.863, p < 0.001) and a moderate association with Customer-Perceived Ethics (β = 0.466, p < 0.001).

Consumers who perceived a brand as communicating measurable environmental impact were more likely to see that brand as authentically green and ethically motivated. Both authenticity and perceived ethics, in turn, were positively associated with brand equity, while perceived greenwashing showed a small negative association with it. The greenwashing story was more complicated.

QSI-E was not significantly associated with lower Perceived Greenwashing at all (β = 0.031, p = 0.380), showing that numbers alone did not reduce consumer suspicion. However, Customer-Perceived Ethics was negatively associated with Perceived Greenwashing (β = −0.188, p = 0.023), and the indirect path from QSI-E to reduced greenwashing perceptions through perceived ethics was statistically significant but small (β = −0.088, p = 0.031). The interpretation offered by the authors is that quantified disclosures work on greenwashing doubts only indirectly, by first shaping judgements about a company's ethical character.

The statistical model accounted for substantial shares of variance in the psychological constructs it targeted: 74.4 per cent of the variance in perceived green authenticity, 75.9 per cent in customer-perceived ethics and 68.6 per cent in brand equity. The authors are careful about the boundaries of these findings. Because the sample consisted exclusively of environmentally conscious Indonesian consumers surveyed at a single point in time, the results describe associations within that specific group and cannot be generalised to consumers more broadly, nor can they establish causal effects.

The study is also explicitly framed as examining QSI-E as a consumer-perceived communication strategy rather than as a formal reporting standard, so the findings speak to perception rather than to the adequacy of any disclosure regime.

Subject of Research: Consumer perceptions of quantified environmental sustainability disclosures and brand equity

Article Title: Quantified environmental sustainability disclosures shape consumer perceptions and brand equity

Article References: Nugraha, H. S., Widayanto, W., Wibowo, A., Chen, S. C., & Zuhdi, M. F. (2026). Quantified environmental sustainability disclosures shape consumer perceptions and brand equity. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04703-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04703-7

Keywords: sustainability communication, greenwashing, brand equity, consumer perception, attribution theory, PLS-SEM, green authenticity, corporate ethics, cross-sectional survey, Indonesia, environmental disclosure, Quantified