In the escalating global battle against environmental degradation, the phenomenon of corporate greenwashing — where companies deceptively portray their products or practices as environmentally friendly — poses a significant hurdle. A groundbreaking study spearheaded by Zeng, Huang, Wu, and colleagues offers fresh insights into understanding and tackling greenwashing through a sophisticated tripartite evolutionary game model. Published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, this research leverages dynamic policy instruments and stakeholder interactions to illuminate pathways toward authentic green innovation, steering enterprises away from superficial eco-claims.
The study dissects the interplay among three pivotal actors in green governance: manufacturing enterprises, governmental regulators, and the public. Unlike traditional models that often view these entities in isolation or dyadic relations, this tripartite framework captures how their strategies evolve in response to incentive-punishment schemes under bounded rationality conditions. At its core, the model simulates decision-making processes considering economic costs, reputation impacts, and social supervision, thereby mapping the shifting equilibrium between genuine innovation and greenwashing.
Delving into regulatory mechanisms, the research identifies that static government interventions — such as fixed green credit allocations and standard green certification revocations — while designed to promote green innovation, fall short of steering the system to stable, desirable outcomes. With static policies in place, enterprises tend to vacillate between green innovation and greenwashing, motivated by cost-benefit calculations influenced by lax or inconsistent governmental enforcement. Concurrently, public involvement remains sporadic, limiting its potential to effectively shape corporate behavior.
A breakthrough emerges when the model incorporates a hybrid approach: static green credit provision combined with dynamic certification revocation. This configuration encourages enterprises to commit to green innovation robustly, as they receive immediate economic incentives via credit support, offsetting innovation risks and initial expenditures. Simultaneously, the dynamic aspect of certification revocation empowers regulators to swiftly penalize deceptive environmental claims, leveraging reputational pressure as a significant deterrent. The system, under this mixed regimen, converges toward an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) characterized by strict governmental supervision, active public oversight, and decisive corporate innovation.
Interestingly, the research reveals a nuanced tension within punitive measures. While revoking green certifications imposes reputational damage on enterprises, excessive or unpredictable penalties may provoke resistance rather than compliance. This underscores the subtlety required in policy calibration—where dynamic regulatory actions must be transparent and consistently adapted to market and social feedback to maintain their efficacy. The study advocates therefore for a governance model that is both flexible and responsive, departing from rigid, one-size-fits-all regulations.
Public participation emerges as a potent force in checking corporate greenwashing, particularly as a counterbalance to regulatory complacency. Engaged consumers, investors, and community members contribute to surveillance via consumption choices, social mobilization, and media exposure. Their involvement not only exerts social pressure on companies to uphold honest environmental practices but also nudges governments to maintain or enhance regulatory rigor. The model highlights that while public supervision heavily influences government strategies, governmental policies retain stronger sway over corporate conduct, suggesting that the interaction between public and government supervision forms a dynamic feedback loop critical for green governance.
From a theoretical perspective, this study marks a significant advance by integrating public environmental values explicitly into the strategic calculus, thereby recognizing the psychological underpinnings behind consumer behavior. Prior research often overlooked this dimension, but here, the model validates that public environmental consciousness directly affects market demand and indirectly pressures firms toward genuine green innovation. This inclusion enriches the broader theory of green governance, illustrating how subtle shifts in public attitudes can cascade into systemic behavioral changes across sectors.
Crucially, the study challenges the prevailing orthodoxies that endorse purely dynamic reward-punishment policies. It demonstrates that a hybrid approach, incorporating both static and dynamic regulatory elements, can outperform exclusively dynamic frameworks. This hybrid policy instrument combination offers governments tactical agility, enabling timely adjustments congruent with evolving market realities and stakeholder feedback. It fundamentally positions government regulation not merely as a punitive mechanism but as a strategic and adaptive governance process capable of balancing economic empowerment with behavioral correction.
The empirical influence of green credit on promoting green innovation receives robust validation within the study. By alleviating financial burdens and mitigating the risks associated with research, development, and implementation of eco-friendly technologies, green credit becomes an indispensable policy tool. The injection of capital support encourages enterprises to pioneer environmentally sustainable practices, which subsequently align with growing consumer demand for green products. This aligns with multiple recent findings, reinforcing green finance as a cornerstone in achieving low-carbon industrial transitions.
Extending the public’s role beyond traditional consumer perspectives, the research broadens the conceptualization of stakeholders to encompass investors, local communities, and civil society actors. This multi-stakeholder inclusion fosters a holistic green governance ecosystem marked by co-regulation and shared accountability. Such collaborative frameworks enhance the resilience and responsiveness of environmental policies, nurturing a governance paradigm where diverse voices and interests converge toward sustainability objectives.
In practical implementation, manufacturing enterprises bear the responsibility to disengage from deceptive green marketing and embrace authentic environmental innovation. Genuine green practices yield competitive advantages by lowering operation costs, optimizing resource use, and satisfying informed consumer preferences. Moreover, credible environmental credentials foster long-term corporate reputation and stakeholder trust, essential assets in an increasingly eco-conscious global marketplace. The study urges enterprises to reinvest in technology and transparent reporting as pillars of sustainable business models.
Government actors, the study argues, must evolve beyond traditional static regulatory templates. Dynamic, multi-layered regulatory strategies are imperative, allowing policy levers to be fine-tuned in real-time in response to changing corporate behavior and public sentiments. By integrating financial incentives with enforceable certification controls, governments can create a regulatory environment that is both enabling and deterrent. Additionally, sustained technical support in the form of grants, R&D funding, and innovation platforms can lower barriers, making it feasible for more enterprises to adopt green innovation unreservedly.
Public engagement, the research emphasizes, is vital in closing enforcement gaps and bridging trust deficits. Institutionalizing mechanisms such as whistleblower rewards, stakeholder consultations, and community monitoring fortifies environmental governance with transparency and accountability. Furthermore, educational campaigns raise environmental literacy, empowering citizens to participate knowledgeably in market and regulatory dynamics, which in turn catalyzes a virtuous cycle of demand-driven corporate innovation.
The collaboration and communication among government agencies, enterprises, and the public form the linchpin of sustainable green governance. Public-private partnerships and inclusive decision-making processes not only pool resources and expertise but also cultivate mutual trust and alignment of incentives. Such synergies are pivotal for designing adaptive policy architectures capable of weathering economic fluctuations and technological uncertainties inherent to environmental regulation.
Despite its comprehensive approach, the study acknowledges limitations, notably the exclusion of other critical stakeholders like suppliers or downstream firms from its analytical model. Future investigations could expand this scope, capturing the full complexity of greenwashing networks and supply chain dynamics. Moreover, the current findings rest on simulations grounded in hypothetical data, highlighting an avenue for imminent empirical research leveraging real-world datasets to validate and refine the theoretical predictions.
In summation, this research delivers a compelling synthesis of theory and practice in addressing greenwashing and propelling green innovation. By combining an innovative modeling framework with nuanced policy insights, it equips policymakers, industry leaders, and civil society with a roadmap for collaborative, adaptive, and effective green governance. The study’s revelations underscore that achieving sustainability transcends isolated actions, demanding an orchestrated symphony of incentives, regulations, and public engagement to foster genuine environmentally responsible transformation.
Subject of Research: Corporate greenwashing behavior and green innovation under dynamic government regulation examined through a tripartite evolutionary game model.
Article Title: Authentic or Spurious: An Evolutionary Game Analysis of Manufacturing Enterprises’ Greenwashing Behavior Under Dynamic Government Regulation
Article References:
Zeng, J., Huang, T., Wu, X. et al. Authentic or spurious: an evolutionary game analysis of manufacturing enterprises’ greenwashing behavior under dynamic government regulation. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 12, 1307 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05630-0
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