Background: Alongside the emergence of green marketing initiatives, consumers began questioning the authenticity and transparency of firms utilising such marketing practices, which consequently led to a low level of perceived credibility. Although green marketing has been a topic of research for many years, a gap in academia remains regarding the impact of legislative instruments on consumers' perceptions. As of 2023, the European Union introduced the EU Green Claims Directive, a legal framework that aims to ensure that all environmental claims are accurate and prevent the exploitation of misleading marketing practices. Purpose: The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to investigate the impact of the new EU Green Claims Directive on the credibility of green marketing from a consumer perspective. Specifically, this study aims to examine how the regulatory standards introduced by the EU on March 22, 2023, challenge previous notions of misleading green claims and their influence on consumer perceptions of environmental credibility. Method: The research follows an abductive approach, using qualitative methods to gather and investigate the empirical data. To address the purpose of this research, two focus groups were used, one identified as the control group and the other as the treatment group, allowing for an experimental design to test the impact on consumer perceptions. An expert interview was used to complement the information gathered about the EU Green Claims Directive, as the frame of reference only yields one source (the actual legislative instrument). A thematic analysis was used for identifying and retrieving any relevant data found in the empirical investigation. Conclusion: The results indicate that consumers remain sceptical towards green marketing even after the implementation of the new EU Directive, and the level of perceived credibility is still low. In conclusion, regulatory implementation seems important to consumers, however, the new EU Directive will not be enough to change previous notions of green claims from a consumer perspective.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hj-64633 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Hammarvid, Linn, Larsson, Tilda |
| Publisher | Jönköping University, Internationella Handelshögskolan |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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