Authentic or spurious: an evolutionary game analysis of manufacturing enterprises’ greenwashing behavior under dynamic government regulation

Abstract The phenomenon of greenwashing, wherein companies exaggerate or falsify environmental claims to project a “green” image, has become increasingly prevalent among manufacturing enterprises. This behavior not only highlights a lack of corporate social responsibility, inadequate regulatory supervision, and insufficient public awareness but also underscores the urgent need to mitigate such practices. To explore effective governance mechanisms, this study constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model involving manufacturing enterprises, the government, and the public, incorporating dynamic government regulatory strategies for simulation. The evolutionary stability of strategy choices among these stakeholders is analyzed, and the impact of various factors on their decision-making processes is investigated. The results reveal that among four government regulatory strategies—static reward and static punishment, static reward and dynamic punishment, dynamic reward and static punishment, and dynamic reward and dynamic punishment—only the strategy combining static reward and dynamic punishment leads to an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS). In this stable state, manufacturing enterprises engage in green innovation, the government enforces strict regulation, and the public actively participates in supervision. Parameter analysis further demonstrates that greenwashing behavior is most strongly influenced by the benefits of green innovation (more than its costs), the issuance of green credit (more than certification revocation), and public supportive incentives (more than resistive pressures), alongside the degree of public environmental concern. Specifically, the benefits of green innovation exert a greater impact on greenwashing behavior than the costs, the issuance of green credit has a more significant effect than the revocation of green certification, and public supportive incentives play a more substantial role than resistive pressures. These results highlight the critical role of dynamic regulation and public engagement in mitigating greenwashing, offering policymakers actionable insights for designing incentive-aligned governance mechanisms while providing enterprises with guidance to align environmental claims with substantive green practices.