Authenticity: Are you green with envy, or suspicion?

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In this SustMeme Guest Post, Mickey Wilson, Founder & CEO of Firestarter, explores why greenwash is so toxic for brands and how it is now raising the stakes for authenticity, especially around sustainability matters.

MW: Authenticity. Every brand claims it. Few live it.

And nowhere does that gap feel more triggering than in sustainability. When a business pretends to act in the interests of people and planet — but is really acting in the interests of profit — it feels like betrayal.

People might forgive pricing mistakes, poor service and even strategic blunders. But when brands greenwash — when they perform virtue without backing it up — our reaction is emotional.

Sustainability isn’t your ordinary commercial territory. It’s moral territory. And when a company exploits moral values for commercial gain, people get angry. They demand accountability, transparency, human decency. And, of course, authenticity – the very thing many brands claim, but few truly embody.

Alignment: Rooted in truth

Many organisations assume authenticity means saying more; having more values; making more pledges; claiming a greater purpose.

Others assume it means revealing more; showing flaws; admitting mistakes; sharing internal struggles.

But authenticity isn’t as easy as that. It isn’t expression; and it isn’t exposure.

Authenticity is alignment. It’s when what you believe, how you behave, and how you present yourself actually line up. And when they’re rooted in truth.

Boycott: People stop buying

Brands can look and sound as if they’re acting responsibly. They can appear entirely credible. They can publish beautiful sustainability reports. But if something doesn’t add up, people sense it pretty quickly.

When sustainability is involved, that sense of misalignment quickly turns into suspicion, and resentment.

A KPMG UK study found that 54% of consumers would stop buying from a brand caught making misleading sustainability claims. Notice that’s not think less of or be cautious of; but actually stop buying.

Greenwashing doesn’t trigger mild scepticism. It triggers boycott.

Because misleading environmental or social claims aren’t a simple case of marketing exaggeration, they feel like a business hijacking shared values for private gain.

That emotional backlash is why authenticity matters more in sustainability than anywhere else.

Now thankfully, most sustainability failures aren’t caused by bad intent — most businesses aren’t setting out to pull the wool over our eyes — but the reputational cost is often the same.

Beware the credibility gap

Let’s look at the real problem. This is usually a result of belief, intent and behaviour drifting too far apart:

When purpose statements don’t influence decisions;
When sustainability messaging lives with the marketing team, and not in operations;
When commercial pressures override altruistic endeavours.

In other words, when brands say one thing; and the business does another.

That gap is what people react to. Not because they expect perfection, but because they expect businesses to do what they say they’re going to do. And if things don’t quite go to plan, then to simply own up to it.

Better but not perfect

Take Vivobarefoot, the UK-based barefoot shoe company. Rather than claiming sustainability is ‘solved’, Vivobarefoot openly acknowledges the environmental cost of footwear — and is experimenting with compostable shoes, circular design, and regenerative business models to reduce it.

They don’t present sustainability as a finished success story. They treat it as an ongoing experiment — full of compromise, constraints, and learning curves. Not perfect or complete, they acknowledge that true sustainability is a long game; and that credibility compounds over time.

You see similar thinking in brands like Selfridges, which has been more open than most retailers about the complexity – and limitations – of its sustainability ambitions under its Project Earth initiative.

They’re not trying to look flawless. They’re trying to be honest about what’s proving difficult, slow, or still unresolved. That kind of transparency builds far more trust than overconfident claims ever could.

Uncomfortable cost of sustainability

But this brings us to some uncomfortable truths for brands.

Genuine sustainability costs something somewhere. It limits choices; complicates decisions; slows growth. It increases costs; reduces margins. If it doesn’t, then people get suspicious.

Audiences are no longer impressed by ambition alone. They’re watching for alignment — and they’re quick to call out brands that claim to stand for the greater good while quietly serving their own interests.

In the sustainability space, authenticity isn’t optional.

And ignoring that isn’t just risky – it is reputationally radioactive.

Mickey Wilson is the CEO and founder behind Firestarter, a B2B brand consultancy known for fusing ingenuity with psychology. After launching her first agency at just 21, Mickey brings over 30 years of experience in brand strategy and creative leadership, and has worked with household names like Tesco, Samsung, CIMA and Ocado. But her true passion lies in building impact brands for rebellious scale-ups and purpose-driven SMEs. Drawing on a background that spans branding, creative direction and strategic consultancy, Mickey developed Firestarter’s proprietary DARE Formula to help business define the four essential ingredients for brand-led growth: Differentiation, Authenticity, Resonance and Expression. An authentically differentiated brand creates freedom – freedom to lead with purpose, build a culture that resonates, and grow something that genuinely makes a difference.

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