Trust Formation in Green Marketing : The impact of shared environmental values, green communication and greenwashing on consumer trust

Sammanfattning

Background: Growing environmental awareness has increased the importance of green marketing, while simultaneously creating challenges for consumers in evaluating the credibility of brands’ environmental claims. As a result, consumer trust has become a central mechanism in reducing uncertainty within green marketing contexts. Although previous research has identified shared environmental values, green communication, and greenwashing as important antecedents of trust, these factors have primarily been studied independently rather than simultaneously. This limits the understanding of their relative influence on consumer trust formation. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain the impact of shared environmental values, green communication, and greenwashing on consumer trust towards brands in a green marketing context. Methodology: The study applies a quantitative research strategy grounded in a positivist epistemology and a deductive research approach. Empirical data were collected through a cross-sectional self-completion questionnaire. A total of 106 valid responses were gathered through non-probability sampling techniques. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis in SPSS. Findings: The findings show that shared environmental values and green communication positively influence consumer trust, while greenwashing has a significantly stronger negative effect compared to the other variables. In addition, environmental concern shows a significant negative relationship with trust. Conclusion: The study enables a more comprehensive understanding of trust formation under conditions of sustainability-related uncertainty. Practically, the findings highlight that combating greenwashing is more important for strengthening consumer trust than focusing solely on green communication or shared environmental values.