Greenwatch-shing: Using AI to Detect Greenwashing

The rise of fake news has resulted in a wide discrepancy between the attention given to the scientific understanding of an issue versus misinformed and sometimes purposefully disinformed claims (false information that is purposely spread to deceive people) coming from outside the scientific community. One such example relates to climate change, where a nature study shows that climate change contrarians are featured in 49% more media articles than scientists, despite the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community over the significance of anthropogenic climate change. In addition, many companies worldwide make inaccurate and often misleading claims about their environmental and social performance, which in turn has led to the widespread practice of greenwashing. This article explores how greenwashing can be conceptualised and applied in the context of judging company claims related to climate change mitigation.