Greenwashing – How to Spot it and How to Stop It

Whatever you want to call it—greenwashing, impact-washing, rainbow washing, diversity washing, SDG-washing, etc.—it is clear that there is a serious trust issue when it comes to how businesses and financial firms communicate with their stakeholders. The continued skepticism aimed at organizations that try to portray themselves as “sustainable” or “woke” threatens to impede the sustainability movement and undo much of the progress made to date.

To solve this issue, we as a community need to come to a better understanding about what is or isn’t greenwashing. In other words, we need a way to differentiate between who is “walking the walk” versus who is just “talking the talk” on sustainability.

This session will feature a discussion about different examples of greenwashing and then offer some best practices about how financial services firms and social enterprises alike can better stand up to scrutiny and earn their stakeholders’ trust through a combination of transparency, integrity and humility.

Confirmed Panelists

Dmitriy Ioselevich is the CEO & Founder of 17 Communications, a mission-driven marketing and communications firm specializing in the ESG and impact investing space. Dmitriy launched 17 Communications with a vision to reform capitalism by bringing together the private and public sectors to work towards tackling shared sustainability challenges, with a mission of catalyzing the flow of capital towards ESG- and impact-oriented investments and solutions through a combination of communications, advocacy, research and education. He works with a range of players active in the ESG/impact ecosystem, helping mission-aligned clients communicate with their target audiences and develop a shared understanding of goals, needs and challenges.

Delilah Rothenberg is the Founder & Executive Director of the Predistribution Initiative (PDI), a multi-stakeholder effort to improve investment structures to share more economics with workers and communities, have stronger deal team incentives for ESG integration, and that ultimately address systemic risks such as income inequality and climate change. Prior to PDI, Delilah advised private equity investors, lenders, and project developers on growth financing, ESG integration, and impact strategy through her firm, Development Capital Strategies (DCS). She currently serves as a Collaborating Partner of Rights CoLab and is a Member of the SASB Standards Advisory Group.

Aziza Kasumov is a reporter with FundFire, a Financial Times Specialist publication covering the institutional asset management industry. In this role, she has reported on institutional investors’ growing appetite for ESG and impact investing products, and the challenges these investors and their investment advisors often face when weeding out authentic responsible investing strategies from those using ESG as a marketing gimmick. Prior to FundFire, she was reporting on health care for Bloomberg News and covered U.S. national news for various German newspapers.

Unconfirmed Panelists

Additional panelists TBD but will include experts who specialize in marketing, communications, investor relations and due diligence for the ESG/impact/sustainability space.

Supporting Materials

• UN Policy Brief - How can investors move from greenwashing to SDG-enabling?
• Institutional Investor - There Are 2,698 Signatories to the United Nations’ ESG Code. Has It Changed Anyone’s Behavior?
• Pensions & Investments - 'Greenwashing' potential tarnishes growth in sustainable investing
• Financial Times - How too much virtue signalling hinders stakeholder capitalism
• The Guardian - Coronawashing: for big, bad businesses, it's the new greenwashing
• Bloomberg - The High Price of Greenwashing
• Financial Times - Is greenwashing a necessary evil?
• ImpactAlpha - Beware cures for ‘impact-washing’ that may be worse than the disease
• FundFire - Real Change or 'Collective Greenwashing'? Industry Debates ESG

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