DESIGN, GREENWASHING AND DATA VISUALIZATION. Visualizing the unsustainability of sustainability as a strategic ethical tool through design

The carbon footprint and greenwashing concepts are interlinked in their impacts on consumer perceptions and behaviors related to sustainability. The rise of greenwashing has the potential to make it complicated for consumers to understand genuine sustainability and thus may lead to distortions in their perceptions about the habits related to sustainability. Such misrepresentation can lead consumers to believe that they are making environmentally responsible choices, as the communicated motives for environmental policies can affect public perceptions of greenwashing. The cognitive biases that consumers exhibit in response to greenwashing serve to further complicate the landscape of sustainability. Extant literature suggests that consumers often face difficulties in recognizing real sustainability efforts and greenwashing. This can result in a process called moral decoupling, where the consumer may rationalize their purchases despite knowing the product is really not sustainable. Thus, the portrayal of sustainability habits contributes to the overconsumption and degradation of the environment through misleading consumers to feel responsible for what they have been doing, which is wrong. Data visualization is important in addressing these challenges that emanate from greenwashing. By effective visualization, the consumer is helped to comprehend such complex data regarding carbon footprint and sustainability issues. Presentation of data in a more transparent and accessible way could also improve consumer awareness and support better decision-making. In fact, understanding the data on sustainability is of paramount importance for building trust. In the light of the above, the paper puts forward that embedding awareness of one's carbon footprint, avoiding greenwashing bias, and presenting effective data visualisation represent an inalienable key aspect of design to promote sustainable consumer behaviour and an ethical use of sustainable data. The following research will collect, interpret, and visualize data related to the sustainability behaviour of a structured sample of people, illustrating how consumer behaviours are unsustainable if biased by greenwashing activities. They show the role of information design as an important guiding strategy for consumers to orient themselves within the complex landscape of environmental questions and find their way to the truth.