ANN ARBOR—While many companies have implemented strategies to address climate change, others may be engaging merely in “greenwash,” say University of Michigan researchers.

Research by Andrew Hoffman, the Holcim Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the Ross School of Business, shows that many companies, such as Alcoa, Cinergy, DuPont, Shell, Swiss Re and Whirlpool, are developing effective climate change strategies.

But colleague Tom Lyon, the Dow Professor of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce at the Ross School, says many other companies falsely promote themselves as environmentally responsible. He has developed the first economic model of “greenwash,” in which a firm strategically reveals environmental information, but is nonetheless penalized for failing to fully disclose environmental impacts.

Hoffman, co-director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise and an expert on managerial implications of environmental protection and social sustainability for industry, can be reached at (734) 763-9455 or ajhoff@umich.edu. More information: http://webuser.bus.umich.edu/ajhoff/.

Lyon, director of the Erb Institute and an authority on corporate environmentalism and the interplay between corporate strategy and public policy, can be reached at (734) 615-1639 or tplyon@umich.edu.

Erb Institute >More information on Lyon>