Authentic Sustainability or Strategic Greenwashing? Unveiling Corporate Rhetoric through a Quantitative Linguistic Analysis of B2B and B2C Firms

Over the past two decades, sustainability has evolved from an ethical aspiration into a strategic component of corporate identity and communication. Companies are increasingly required to disclose not only financial results but also environmental and social impacts, in line with international standards and recent European directives on sustainability reporting. Despite this growing regulatory alignment, significant discrepancies persist in the authenticity and transparency of corporate communication. Many firms adopt aspirational or value-laden language emphasizing moral engagement rather than measurable performance, a phenomenon known as greenwashing. This study seeks to quantify the coherence between sustainability discourse and verifiable evidence, examining whether such inconsistencies are more prevalent among business-to-consumer (B2C) firms, which operate in reputation-sensitive markets, than among business-to-business (B2B) firms, typically governed by technical and contractual standards. The research addresses two questions: 1. Is greenwashing more severe among B2C firms? 2. Do B2B and B2C companies differ in the coherence between declarations and measurable data? The null hypothesis assumes no significant differences, while the alternative suggests that B2C firms display greater linguistic vagueness and lower informational concreteness. A quantitative linguistic approach is applied to a corpus of sustainability and annual reports from B2B and B2C firms. Using AntConc software, frequency counts, keyword extractions, and concordance analyses are performed. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) dictionary provides lexical categories related to uncertainty, commitment, and future orientation, allowing identification of rhetorical traits typical of sustainability discourse. This mixed linguistic–content analysis method transforms qualitative communication features into measurable data. Three quantitative indicators are developed: the Vagueness Language Index (VLI), the Concreteness Index (CI), and the Greenwashing Severity Index (GSI). The first two derive from the disclosure and performance dimensions proposed by Dorfleitner et al. (2022). The VLI measures the proportion of vague or symbolic language, while the CI quantifies the share of sustainability statements supported by quantitative evidence. When necessary, normalization produces the Adjusted Concreteness Index (CIa) to enhance comparability. The GSI, adapted from Walker and Wan (2012), integrates these metrics to assess overall communicative inconsistency: GSI = VLI × (1 – CI) × 3. Values close to 0 indicate transparent communication, while higher scores denote severe greenwashing. Following Mathurin et al. (2021), the GSI also supports comparison between B2B and B2C contexts, reflecting how stakeholder orientation shapes sustainability disclosure. Expected results suggest that B2C firms will exhibit higher VLI and lower CI values, indicating a more rhetorical approach, while B2B firms will demonstrate greater data-based precision, resulting in lower GSI scores. This research offers three main contributions: it introduces a quantitative and replicable tool for measuring linguistic greenwashing; it bridges disclosure and performance models with empirical linguistic analysis; and it provides a diagnostic framework for assessing the credibility and transparency of sustainability communication. By quantifying the relationship between words and actions, the study advances understanding of how firms use language to construct legitimacy and differentiate authentic sustainability from strategic greenwashing.