Greenwashing, the phenomenon of companies misleading consumers about their sustainability practices, is prevalent in the fashion industry. This study explores consumer opinions on greenwashing through analysis of social media discourse. Cognitive dissonance theory served as the theoretical framework, explaining how consumers reconcile conflicting information about brands’ sustainability claims. In Study 1, 446 comments on 12 Reddit posts were collected using the search term “fashion greenwashing”. Using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) algorithm and manual review, we identified three major themes: the phenomenon of fashion greenwashing, consumer empowerment in sustainable fashion, and skepticism towards fast fashion brands’ marketing strategies. In Study 2, using the search term, “#fashiongreenwashing”, two researchers collected and analyzed 76 Instagram posts with 370 comments. A manual review was employed to extract major themes, and network graphs of caption tags within the same theme were constructed. Three major themes emerged: strategies to combat fashion greenwashing, examples of fashion greenwashing, and advocacy and regulation in sustainable fashion. Findings from Studies 1 and 2 revealed that consumers are increasingly aware of brands’ deceptive practices and advocacy for sustainable practices to resolve this dissonance when they see greenwashing information. This study underscored the need for fashion brands to provide transparent and authentic information.
漂绿是公司在其可持续发展实践方面误导消费者的现象，在时尚行业很普遍。本研究通过分析社交媒体话语来探讨消费者对漂绿的看法。认知失调理论作为理论框架，解释了消费者如何调和有关品牌可持续性声明的相互矛盾的信息。在研究 1 中，使用搜索词“时尚漂绿”收集了 12 个 Reddit 帖子的 446 条评论。使用潜在狄利克雷分配 （LDA） 算法和人工审查，我们确定了三个主要主题：时尚漂绿现象、可持续时尚的消费者赋权以及对快时尚品牌营销策略的怀疑。在研究 2 中，使用搜索词 “#fashiongreenwashing”，两名研究人员收集并分析了 76 个 Instagram 帖子和 370 条评论。采用人工审查来提取主要主题，并构建同一主题内标题标签的网络图。出现了三个主要主题：打击时尚漂绿的策略、时尚漂绿的例子以及可持续时尚的倡导和监管。研究 1 和 2 的结果表明，当消费者看到漂绿信息时，他们越来越意识到品牌的欺骗行为，并倡导可持续实践来解决这种不和谐。这项研究强调了时尚品牌提供透明和真实信息的必要性。