Do citizens hold business accountable for greenwashing by demanding more government intervention?

Environmental policy in many Western democracies relies on voluntary environmental action by the private sector. This policy mode is strongly contested though. Proponents of introducing government regulation argue that voluntary corporate environmental action is rarely more than “greenwashing”. Can policymakers rely on public opinion to hold firms accountable for (lacking) contributions to environmental goods? I argue that greenwashing accusations reduce citizens’ confidence in both the effectiveness of voluntary environmental action by firms and the alignment of firms’ economic interest and environmental protection. Furthermore, I propose, that citizens’ support for government intervention increases in response to firms being accused of greenwashing. I test this argument in a survey experiment (N=2112) on a sample representative of the Swiss voting population. The analysis shows that accusing firms of greenwashing changes how citizens perceive voluntary environmental action by firms. This, however, does not translate into shifts in citizens’ regulatory preferences.