European banks and financiers doing the most greenwashing

The number of instances of greenwashing by banks and financial services companies rose 70 percent globally, with most from Europe in the past 12 months from the previous 12 months, a report yesterday showed.

Greenwashing involves an organization making misleading sustainability-related claims to investors or consumers, usually to boost its reputation and bottom line.

Environmental, social and governance data firm RepRisk recorded 1,968 companies were linked to at least one risk incident involving environmental footprint and misleading communication.

Among them, 148 cases were from the banking and financial services industry, up from 86 during the previous 12 months.

The banking and financial services industry is second only to oil and gas for the number of greenwashing incidents, RepRisk said.

The number of Asia based-companies involved in greenwashing cases for the past 12 months also saw an increase of 23.2 percent to 350.

One in every four climate-related ESG risk incidents was linked to greenwashing, an increase from one in five last year, according to the report.