Is Sri Lanka Greenwashed?

Abstract

As the results of environmental damage are increasing, the majority of people around the world are suffering from its impacts. Due to that reason, they attempt to mitigate the effect of this issue as much as possible and one way of such mitigation is consuming sustainable and eco-friendly products and services. Consequently, businesses and companies started to introduce sustainable products with the intention of beginning a sustainable market. However, several people who wanted to get the commercial benefit of this practice started to mislead the consumers by pretending that their artificial and harmful products are also sustainable and organic. This practice of misleading consumers was developed as ‘Greenwashing’ and now most of countries have started to pay their attention to mitigate the impacts on Greenwashing. Some countries have introduced their regulations regarding Greenwashing. However, when it comes to Sri Lanka, even though Greenwashing is existing within the country, the relevant authorities and organizations have still failed to address this issue. Simultaneously, there is a lacuna in the legal system of Sri Lanka as well due to the lack of proper and specific laws for Greenwashing. In this research it is purposed to compare and analyse the Sri Lankan laws related to Greenwashing with other specified laws and guidelines in the international level. In addition to that this is a qualitative research based on international codes and guidelines together with national laws.