Exploring Environmental Collaboration and Greenwashing in Construction Projects: Integrative Governance Framework

Abstract

Environmental collaboration between organizations involved in construction projects enables the efficiency of environmental management to gain environmental sustainability. Yet, in many projects, this collaboration is gamed promoting contractor greenwashing behavior, thereby diminishing the effectiveness of environmental management. What is unclear are the underpinning mechanisms to concurrently increase environmental collaboration and decrease contractor greenwashing behavior in construction projects. We used an integrated theoretical framework based on social exchange theory and transaction cost economics to evaluate the potential linear, curvilinear, and combined influence of interorganizational trust and formal contracts on environmental collaboration and contractor greenwashing behavior. Drawing evidence from questionnaire surveys, we find that two categories of interorganizational trust yield positive impacts on environmental collaboration and different curvilinear impacts on greenwashing behavior. Two categories of formal contracts exert an inverted U-shaped effect on environmental collaboration and heterogeneous effects on greenwashing behavior. We also find that formal contracts negatively moderate the effects of interorganizational trust on environmental collaboration, and interorganizational trust negatively moderates the impact of formal contracts on greenwashing. We provide novel insights into the interorganizational governance mechanisms regarding greenwashing in construction projects relevant for construction managers concerned with the environmental efficiency-effectiveness.