The Sustainability Claim Paradox: When Green Marketing Encourages Greater Consumption

Abstract

Sustainability claims are assumed to promote responsible consumption, yet consumption itself drives environmental harm. Drawing on moral licensing theory, this study asks whether such claims instead licence greater consumption across the purchase, use/replacement and disposal stages of one cycle. A between‐subjects experiment ( N = 303) manipulated claim strength (control, light, strong) in a product advertisement, and the hypothesised effects were estimated jointly using partial least squares structural equation modelling. Stronger claims raised perceived environmental impact, which raised intended purchase quantity, and this belief carried the total purchase effect entirely, consistent with static moral licensing. The evidence is mixed thereafter: Claim strength had no net effect on intended use or replacement, and although it showed a small total effect on justifying earlier disposal, perceived impact did not carry that effect, and the direct path was inconclusive under the inferential rule adopted here. Environmental concern attenuated rather than amplified the effect.