Environmental Advertising: Norms and Levels of Advertiser Trust

This study measures the extent to which the public trusts advertisers who make environmental product claims. There is, for a broad range of environmental advertising behaviors, an extremely low level of trust, as indicated by low levels of agreement between the public's norms and norms attributed to environmental advertisers. The public believes that advertisers are guided by a set of norms much more liberal than their own. The results are discussed in terms of the development of norms for environmental advertising and the publics' lack of trust of environmental advertisers. Implications for the future of “green” products and practice of environmental advertising are also presented.