Lying about Green in Consumer Discourse : An Exploratory Text Mining Study Based on Blogs

This study investigates consumers’perceptions of greenwashing to better understand the limitations of sustainability marketing. Employing a text mining approach, we analyzed blog content to capture authentic consumer perspectives beyond what is typically found in official news articles. Data were, therefore, collected from major Korean blogging platforms—Naver, Tistory, and Brunch. Preprocessing included topic relevance validation and noun extraction using ChatGPT API, followed by stop word removal. A term frequency analysis and LDA topic modeling were subsequently performed. The frequency analysis revealed that keywords such as “environment,” “effort,” “responsibility,” and “ESG”appeared prominently, reflecting strong consumer expectations for genuine corporate accountability in environmental protection. Simultaneously, frequent mentions of “marketing,” “strategy,” and “regulation” underscored growing skepticism that eco-friendly messaging may be employed merely as a strategic tool, fueling concerns about greenwashing. LDA topic modeling identified three primary themes: (1) corporate responsibility for environmental protection, (2) criticism of superficial green marketing practices, and (3) the perceived necessity for regulatory measures to curb greenwashing. These findings indicate that consumers tend to not only assess eco-friendly claims but also closely scrutinize their authenticity and advocate for stronger regulatory frameworks. As such, this study underscores the importance for companies to move beyond surface-level sustainability narratives, embrace transparent practices, and proactively address consumer skepticism.