Unfair Competition or the Fine Line between Green Marketing and Greenwashing?

Jana Strémy – Ľubomír Zlocha

In: ADAMOVÁ, Z. (ed.) Nové technológie, internet a duševné vlastníctvo 6: Označovanie produktov. Trnava: Typi Universitatis Tyrnaviensis, spoločné pracovisko Trnavskej univerzity v Trnave a VEDY, vydavateľstva Slovenskej akadémie vied, 2024, pp. 87-99. ISBN 978-80-568-0709-5.

Summary: In the paper, the authors deal with the issue of greenwashing and influence marketing on the European platform as well as in our domestic legal environment, inter alia through the prism of competition law. In its elaboration they used standard methods in social sciences. Perceiving greenwashing through the prism of competition law in our conditions, we take the view that it can be subsumed under the unnamed acts of unfair competition. In order to speak of greenwashing as an act of unfair competition, it is necessary to cumulatively fulfil the three conditions of the general clause of the act of unfair competition enshrined in Section 44(1) of the Commercial Code. They concluded that influencers could commit greenwashing ad minimum by presenting brands as more sustainable than they actually are. However, consumers and their ability to detect such influencer behaviour play as well an essential role here.

URL: http://ntidv.iuridica.truni.sk/archive/ntidv-6/NTIDV-6-Stremy-Jana-Zlocha-Lubomir.pdf

Bibliographic Citation

STRÉMY, J., ZLOCHA, Ľ. Nekalá súťaž alebo tenká hranica medzi zeleným marketingom a greenwashingom?. In: ADAMOVÁ, Z. (ed.) Nové technológie, internet a duševné vlastníctvo 6: Označovanie produktov. Trnava: Typi Universitatis Tyrnaviensis, spoločné pracovisko Trnavskej univerzity v Trnave a VEDY, vydavateľstva Slovenskej akadémie vied, 2024, pp. 87-99. ISBN 978-80-568-0709-5.