TY - THES A1 - Kreitzen, Nora T1 - Comparative Study on Greenwashing in the Cosmetis Industry: A Content Analysis N2 - As climate change and the pollution of the planet become an increasing problem, consumers are becoming more environmentally aware and demand sustainable business practices from companies and sustainable ingredients to be used in cosmetic products. But not all companies operating in the cosmetics industry are able to hold true to the promise of sustainable actions and deceive consumers by misleading and false statements and behaviour, thus utilise “Greenwashing”. Nowadays, greenwashing is a well-know practice reducing trust in a brand and diminish its reputation. Therefore, the question arises what advantages companies generate by using greenwashing schemes. This study is based on the content analysis according to Kuckartz and detects misleading claims in sustainability reports and other non-financial reports. Therein, companies focus on presenting themselves as environmentally friendly and aim at improving their actions by highlight partnerships with NGOs to appear more sustainable. Thus, the reports are used as a marketing tool to attract stakeholders. But there are several lawsuits and articles against companies in the cosmetics industry implying otherwise and proving false and misleading statements regarding cosmetics, the ingredients, and the packaging. Meaning, companies attract more customers by seemingly meeting their demand for natural cosmetics and sustainable packaging, and therefore generate a larger consumer base implying higher profit. Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:1383-opus4-14481 ER -