Concept
Washing Economy
SustainabilityCommunication
A system in which virtue becomes a marketing budget — discourse, not action, generates revenue.
A structural pattern expanding through the series greenwashing → AI-washing → judgment-washing → upskill-washing → narrative-washing: the commercialisation of transformation discourse in place of real transformation. The same architecture is reproduced in each new agenda. Washing is not the tactical choice of individual firms; it is a systemic mode of production.
Essays that develop this concept
Related concepts
- Decoupling ThesisThe claim that economic growth can be decoupled from resource consumption.
- Epistemic WeaponisationAn information strategy targeting the status of truth, not its content.
- Jevons ParadoxWhen a technology that uses a resource becomes more efficient, total consumption of that resource rises rather than falls.
- Rebound EffectEvery unit of efficiency saving is refilled by new demand and new capacity.