Green or greenwashed?

: Gen Z’s perception of the credibility of green marketing in the fast fashion industry

Abstract

In today’s society, green marketing and greenwashing have become two important questions in the fashion industry. The purpose of the thesis is to study what influences the perceptions of Swedish Gen Z consumers regarding green marketing by fast fashion brands as credible and whether their purchasing intentions match their perceptions. A conceptual framework was made based on previous literature reviews and the Tri-component model of attitudes to help answer the thesis question. A qualitative method was used, and three focus group interviews were conducted to collect empirical data. Firstly, the findings indicated that Gen Z is aware of sustainability and positively perceives green marketing. However, Gen Z turned out to be skeptical regarding fast fashion green claims, where brands' reputation and history, trend, price of the garment, and communication were the factors behind their green skepticism. Secondly, the findings showed that Gen Z’s perceived that the credibility of green marketing in the fast fashion industry does not match their intentions of purchasing clothes from fast fashion brands with greenwashed claims. This study contributes to finding explanations for what factors influence the younger consumers' perceptions of the credibility of green marketing and how it affects their purchasing intention.

Date of Award	2022-Jun
Original language	English
Supervisor	Axel Welinder (Supervisor), Heléne Tjärnemo (Examiner) & Christian Koch (Examiner)