What’s wrong with carbon neutrality? The greenwashing risks of carbon neutral marketing claims

16 Jul 2025

Director Desmond Chng authored a thought piece on the greenwashing risks of environmental marketing practices titled, “What’s Wrong with Carbon Neutrality? The Greenwashing Risks of Carbon Neutral Marketing Claims”.
 
With growing global scrutiny on greenwashing, businesses face increased legal and reputational risks for making vague or misleading environmental claims, including around carbon neutrality. An over reliance on carbon offsets in reaching carbon neutrality goals would undermine efforts to directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Having said that, even while the use of carbon credits and offsets is not without its challenges, the carbon markets are critical to unlocking urgently needed green financing, especially for the global south, and offsets can have a meaningful role in addressing residual hard-to-abate emissions.

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