How Green Trust, Consumer Brand Engagement and Green Word-of-Mouth Mediate Purchasing Intentions

: An increasing interest in environmental problems around the world has signiﬁcantly expanded the demand for green goods, transforming green marketing into an effective tool for businesses to achieve competitive advantage. Yet, as more ﬁrms become aware of this strategic advantage, greenwashing activities can also ﬂourish, and customers grow more cautious about green efforts by ﬁrms. The present research examines how greenwashing expectations of customers affect their green buying decisions by studying how green trust, consumer brand engagement and green word-of-mouth mediate this relationship. A total of 302 subjects participated in a survey to study greenwashing effects using a high involvement green ad and a low involvement green ad. Results were analyzed using a PLS-SEM approach. The ﬁndings show that the greenwashing expectations of customers have no direct effect on green purchase decisions, but that green trust and green word-of-mouth mediate this relationship. Likewise, greenwashing perception signiﬁcantly affects customer brand engagement indirectly through green trust and there is a full mediation between greenwashing perception and green purchasing intention through green trust, customer brand engagement and green word of mouth. Therefore, the study shows that having a low perception of greenwashing is not enough to increase purchases. For that to occur, companies need to ensure that WOM communicates such efforts and that consumers trust these green initiatives.


Introduction
The increasing awareness of climate change effects has led customers to prefer brands and goods that support green initiatives and strive to have limited adverse environmental effects [1,2]. However, with the rise of green marketing worldwide, greenwashing and consequently consumer skepticism has increased [3]. In fact, consumers are becoming more cautious about these issues and want businesses to be environmentally responsible, which may cause them to avoid companies that promote unethical green initiatives [4]. Greenwashing is therefore a very promising subject, and academic attention is increasing steadily [5]. Although extant research has focused on discussing the topics of brand loyalty, interaction, word-of-mouth and purchasing preferences regarding green marketing, to the best of the authors' knowledge the current paper is the first to study the effects of greenwashing on purchase intention by examining whether greenwashing expectations affect green purchasing intentions though the mediating roles of green trust, green wordof-mouth and customer brand engagement.
Green purchasing intentions refers to the chances that a consumer will buy a particular product in consequence of his/her environmental concerns and represents the extent to which consumers are willing to purchase products and services from companies that they perceive as being environmentally friendly [6], but there is no guarantee that customers will, in all instances, buy green products. There are many factors that affect their green buying intention [24]. Green concern, product involvement, promotions and perceived quality, all influence how the consumer thinks about buying environmentally friendly products [25].
Regarding the influence of perceived greenwashing, various authors have reported that, when consumers realize that a firm is greenwashing, they tend to be more skeptical and, consequently, are less likely to buy products from those firms [6,19,23]. Hence: Hypothesis 1 (H1). Greenwashing perception is negatively related to green purchasing intentions.
In order to establish long-term relations with stakeholders, companies must show consistency, competence, honesty, and accountability -all linked with brand trust [2]. As mentioned earlier, there is a common tendency to distrust green products, green marketing and advertising in general due to a growing skepticism about such campaigns. This skepticism emerges because consumers commonly feel that brands are over-exaggerating their green benefits or misleading them with highly vague and confusing claims (greenwashing), with the sole purpose of profiting from people's environment concern [6,19,26,27]. This green skepticism indicates very low levels of green trust.
Although the relation between green trust and its effects on consumer behavior have already been studied in the literature, the authors of [28] state that the broader dimension of green trust and its antecedents have remained under-researched and that there is a need to better explore the variables that can influence green trust in the context of purchasing intention. Some studies have discussed that greenwashing negatively influences green trust [1,22], but the current study intends to fill a gap in the literature by studying its mediating effect on the relationship between greenwashing perception and green purchasing intention.
Green trust measures how much consumers are confident that a specific product, service or brand excels in environmental performance [2]. Several studies show a positive link between companies' business ethics and consumer trust, and that business ethics can have a key role in establishing long-term relationships [24]. When consumers are faced with greenwashing claims from certain companies, they are more reluctant to engage in long-term relationships [6,15,22]. In the face of false and unclear green promises, customers are also less likely to trust the company [2]. Therefore, we posit that:
Companies should invest in their green image and in gaining and maintaining green customer trust in order to boost green purchasing intentions [1]. In fact, some authors have already established the positive relationship between green trust and green purchasing intention [1,28]. Indeed, research shows that when low performing products are associated with ethical cues, consumers rely on such ethical information to form their opinion about the product [29].
Green trust influences green buying intentions because customers connect themselves with trusted ethical businesses and remove themselves from dubious ethical activities [24]. Greenwashing damages consumers' trust in a company, and consequently their intention to buy green [15,30]. Zhang et al. [6] state that this lack of trust generated by perceived greenwashing can ultimately lead to a reduction in consumers' green purchasing intentions, assuming green trust as a mediator of the relationship between greenwashing perception and green purchasing intention.
That said, in order to increase consumers' green purchasing intentions, companies should avoid actions that may lead to green skepticism and focus on developing good relationships with consumers and building green trust [24]. Hence:

Hypothesis 3 (H3).
Green trust is positively related to green purchasing intentions.

The Role of Greenwashing on Consumer Brand Engagement
Consumer brand engagement (CBE) is a relatively new concept in strategic marketing and branding [31]. Companies are focusing on CBE because they are becoming aware of the potential beneficial consequences that a long-term two-way valuable relationship with the consumer can have on consumer marketplace behavior [32,33]. Therefore, building CBE is, nowadays, one of managers' top priorities [32]. In fact, CBE has been associated with higher advertising effectiveness [34], increased trust, rapport, commitment and customer satisfaction [35], and arises as a business strategy that aims to improve corporate performance by creating competitive advantage, consumer loyalty and, ultimately, increasing sales and financial results [34,36].
CBE is a multidimensional concept that depends on the context and on the consumer expression of relevant cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions, such as absorption (cognitive), dedication (emotional) and interaction (behavioral) towards the brand [34][35][36]. Thus, it can be defined as "the level of an individual customer's motivational, brand-related and context-dependent state of mind characterized by specific levels of cognitive, emotional and behavioral activity in direct brand interactions" [35] (p. 790). The relationship the consumer has with the brand goes well beyond just a transactional relationship [37].
CBE is considered a psychological state because it goes beyond the mere manifestation of behaviors, since it also involves cognitive and emotional responses [36]. The two-way interaction in the relationship between the subject (consumer) and object (brand) is one of the main characteristics of CBE, where the consumer is a crucial factor in the creation of engagement because they are no longer passive audiences, but active players [31,33]. In fact, Brodie et al. [34] (p. 253) addressed CBE as "an interactive experience and value co-creation within marketing relationships".
Few research studies link CBE to greenwashing. Nevertheless, research has shown that customers often forgive brands when they are highly engaged [38]. In a recent study, [36] showed that perceived CSR influences CBE. They also recognized that perceived CSR created trust among customers, which in turn helped to make consumers more ready to establish connections with the company. When customers believe a brand is trustworthy, they will show more brand engagement and loyalty [36]. Thus, if perceived CSR develops trust and consequently promotes higher CBE, it can be expected that perceived greenwashing will have the opposite effect by decreasing consumer's trust, and consequently lowering CBE. Therefore:

Hypothesis 5 (H5).
Green trust is positively related to consumer brand engagement CBE was also shown to increase brand use intent, brand loyalty, and brand performance [32,37]. When talking about purchasing intentions, and specifically green purchasing intentions, it would be expected that consumers who are more engaged with a certain brand have more access to information regarding environmental, social and governance activities (ESG) and are therefore more prone to buy or have the intention to buy products of that brand, including green ones [9,29]. Therefore, this research proposes that high levels of CBE will lead to higher green purchasing intentions. Thus:

Hypothesis 6 (H6). Consumer brand engagement is positively related to green purchasing intention
When customer involvement is strong, customers are less likely to switch brands, thereby extending the life of a brand and spreading positive WOM [32,36]. Consumers engage in WOM so they can communicate and discuss their experiences (positive or negative) with friends, relatives and colleagues, in order to exchange information and improve decision-making [39]. WOM has a great impact on consumers' decision making because people look for it to avoid or diminish uncertainty of their purchases [6].
Engaged consumers tend to believe, trust, and have pride and passion for the brand [34], and to develop a sense of belonging that makes them brand advocates, who like to spread positive WOM [36,38]. High brand engagement makes the consumer more interested in supporting the brand and recommending and discussing its products or services with others. In fact, positive WOM is one of the main manifestations of brand engagement [36]. In terms of green marketing, the concept of green WOM can be defined as "the extent to which a customer would infer friends, relatives, and colleagues about positive environmental messages of a product or a brand" [15] (p. 2414). Therefore, we suggest that green WOM is also related to CBE and in this case:

Hypothesis 7 (H7). Consumer brand engagement is positively related to green word-of-mouth.
Brand trust also can influence consumers' relationship and behavioral results toward a brand. Papista & Dimitriadis [40] related brand trust, as well as commitment, love, intimacy and self-connection, with positive WOM. However, and according to Sichtmann [41], these studies focused on brand trust and have not fully explored the impact of trust on WOM behavior. However, he suggests that when a consumer trusts a certain brand, the risk of giving bad advice and disappointing another person decreases, the consumer being more disposed to recommend and say good things about the brand to others. Thus, he proposed that trust in a brand positively influences WOM behaviour [41].
Therefore, in the case of green trust and green WOM specifically, it can be hypothesized that when a consumer does not trust a brand's green intentions, claims and/or actions it would be expected that they would not be willing to spread positive green WOM regarding that brand's green actions. In fact, in research conducted by Skarmeas & Leonidou [39], it was found that green skepticism was associated with negative green WOM. Hence:

Hypothesis 8 (H8).
Green trust is positively related to green word-of-mouth.
Some companies feel tempted to engage in greenwashing activities, so they can effortlessly achieve this consumer satisfaction regarding sustainability. However, when consumers perceive the company is involved in greenwashing, this can have an undesired adverse effect, since it has been established that perceived greenwashing negatively affects green WOM [15], and that negative experiences tend to have a stronger impact and to stay longer in consumer's memories [39]. Actually, when consumers are aware that a company's green actions and communication are not fully transparent and that the company intends to mislead consumers through greenwashing, they stop spreading positive green WOM, or even start spreading negative green WOM so they can warn others [6,15,39]. It was shown in research conducted by [15] that greenwashing causes a decline in green WOM. Perceived quality, satisfaction, green trust and CBE are mediators of such a relationship. In fact, the impact of perceived greenwashing on green WOM can constitute a big threat for companies if consumers turn to negative green WOM-especially in this social media era, since a larger number of people can become skeptical towards the company's green intentions and boycott the company by stopping the purchasing of its products [6]. Therefore, it is recommended that companies reduce or completely avoid greenwashing activities in order to improve green WOM [15], so we expect that: Hypothesis 9 (H9). Greenwashing perception is negatively related to green word-of-mouth.
Customers explore products beforehand to mitigate perceived risk. Today, people use the internet to obtain information because it allows for real-time consumer-to-consumer interactions [42]. Products with positive green WOM opinions are trusted by consumers and, thus, they influence other customers' purchasing decisions. When customers are uncertain about green goods, they are more inclined to trust and buy those with superior green WOM [15]. Indeed, green WOM communication may impact long-term and short-term product choices and customer risk taking [42]. Therefore, and following Zhang et al. [6], we expect that green WOM will positively affect green purchasing intentions. Thus: Hypothesis 10 (H10). Green word-of-mouth is positively related to green purchasing intention. Figure 1 shows the suggested conceptual model.
in green WOM. Perceived quality, satisfaction, green trust and CBE are mediators of such a relationship. In fact, the impact of perceived greenwashing on green WOM can constitute a big threat for companies if consumers turn to negative green WOM-especially in this social media era, since a larger number of people can become skeptical towards the company's green intentions and boycott the company by stopping the purchasing of its products [6]. Therefore, it is recommended that companies reduce or completely avoid greenwashing activities in order to improve green WOM [15], so we expect that:

Hypothesis 9 (H9). Greenwashing perception is negatively related to green word-of-mouth.
Customers explore products beforehand to mitigate perceived risk. Today, people use the internet to obtain information because it allows for real-time consumer-to-consumer interactions [42]. Products with positive green WOM opinions are trusted by consumers and, thus, they influence other customers' purchasing decisions. When customers are uncertain about green goods, they are more inclined to trust and buy those with superior green WOM [15]. Indeed, green WOM communication may impact long-term and short-term product choices and customer risk taking [42]. Therefore, and following Zhang et al. [6], we expect that green WOM will positively affect green purchasing intentions. Thus: Hypothesis 10 (H10). Green word-of-mouth is positively related to green purchasing intention. Figure 1 shows the suggested conceptual model.

Materials and Methods
A survey was conducted to test the hypotheses using two green ads (one with a high involvement product and other with a low involvement product). Nestlé (bottled water) was used as a low-involvement product and Apple notebook was used as a high-involvement product. Both Nestle and Apple were tested in terms of brand love due to the effect

Materials and Methods
A survey was conducted to test the hypotheses using two green ads (one with a high involvement product and other with a low involvement product). Nestlé (bottled water) was used as a low-involvement product and Apple notebook was used as a highinvolvement product. Both Nestle and Apple were tested in terms of brand love due to the effect that brand love may have on marketing outcomes [43]. Brand love has been positively associated with brand loyalty, brand commitment and brand repurchase intentions [43][44][45]. Greenwashing perception, green purchase intention and green word-ofmouth were measured using scales adapted from [6]. Green trust was measured using an adapted scale from [2]. Consumer brand engagement followed items adapted from [36]. All the items were measured using a 5-point Likert-scale. Table A1 details the items for each scale in the conceptual model. An independent t-test was conducted and showed that there were no significant differences on the levels of brand love between the two brands (t = −1.734, p = 0.084). A total of 302 valid responses were obtained, with 57.9% of the respondents being women and 42.1% of the respondents being men. Differences between the sample of both groups regarding age, gender, education and green concern [6] were assessed. The results of the independent t-tests showed that there were no significant differences on age (t = 0.605, p= 0.545), gender (t= −0.275, p = 0.784), education (t = −0.655, p = 0.513) and green concern (t = 1.363, p = 0.174) between the two groups. Thus, it can be concluded that the sample characteristics of both groups are statistically similar.

Results
The conceptual model was tested using a partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 3. The current research evaluates the research model in two steps: the outer model (measurement model) and the inner model (structural model) [46]. To test the hypotheses, bootstrapping procedure with 5000 samples was used. Table 1 shows the results of the measurement model in terms of convergent validity, internal consistency reliability and discriminant validity. The outer loadings are all above 0.70 [47] varying from 0.769 to 0.952, all statistically significant (p < 0.001). One indicator for the greenwashing perception construct (GWP2) was deleted from the original model since the removal of its low outer loading (0.674) led to an increase in the composite reliability and average variance extracted [47]. Furthermore, Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability of the constructs were all well above the recommended levels of 0.70 [47], which indicates that the model is internally reliable. The average variance extracted (AVE) of all constructs was also above 0.50, suggesting that each has convergent validity [47].  Discriminant validity was accessed using the Fornell-Larcker criterion in which the square root of AVE of all constructs needs to be greater than its highest correlation with any other construct [46]. In this research the square root of AVE of all constructs is higher than the correlation with any other construct (see Table 2), which suggests discriminant validity. Discriminant validity can also be established by Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio criterion [46]. The ratios are all lower than 0.850 which indicates satisfactory discriminant validity within the data [46].
An analysis of the structural model fit reveals that the proposed model fits the data with an SRMR = 0.053 and NFI = 0.894 [48]. The structural model values of R2 estimates, Stone-Geisser's Q2 value, effect size (f2), path coefficients (β), and p-values are depicted on Figure 2 and Table 3.  minant validity within the data [46].  An analysis of the structural model fit reveals that the proposed model fits the data with an SRMR = 0.053 and NFI = 0.894 [48]. The structural model values of R2 estimates, Stone-Geisser's Q2 value, effect size (f2), path coefficients (β), and p-values are depicted on Figure 2 and Table 3.    The model predicts 68.4% of the variance in green purchasing intention, 61% of the variance in green WOM, 44.7% of the variance in green trust and 27.6% of the variance in CBE. Furthermore, the effect size (f2) of greenwashing perception, green trust, CBE and green WOM in relation to green purchasing intention suggests weak effect size at the structural level whereas green WOM in relation to green purchasing intention has a medium effect size [49]. All the dependent variables' Stone-Geisser's Q2 are larger than zero, and therefore confirm the model's predictive validity. All the proposed paths are statistically significant, except for the paths of the main effect from the greenwashing perception to green purchasing intention (t = 1.249, p = 0.212), and from greenwashing perception to consumer brand engagement (t = 0.522, p = 0.602). Overall, the analysis supports all the hypotheses except 1 and 4.
Regarding hypothesis 4 (GWP → CBE), it is rejected since greenwashing perception does not significantly influence consumer brand engagement directly (β = −0.035, p = 0.602), contrarily to what was predicted. However, despite acknowledging that greenwashing behavior conflicts with main drivers of CBE such as with brand self-expression [31] and brand self-congruity [37], it is also known that high levels of engagement can sometimes make consumers more willing to forgive a brand for misconduct [38]. This may explain why greenwashing perception does not affect CBE directly. However, greenwashing perception significantly affects CBE indirectly through green trust (β = −0.335, p = 0.000). This confirms the idea discussed previously that, when consumers consider a brand reliable, they are more likely to engage with that brand [36].
Furthermore, concerning the main effect of the model-hypothesis 1 (GWP → GPI)this hypothesis was also rejected (β = −0.057, p = 0.212). Thus, and contrarily to other studies [6], greenwashing perception does not negatively impact greenwashing perception directly. However, this conclusion strengths the purpose and relevance of this research regarding the need to analyze and discover relevant mediators for this relationship. Therefore, a mediation analysis was conducted, in order to understand what variables fully or partial mediate this relationship.

Mediation Analysis
This research follows Cepeda-Carrion et al. [50] for the mediation analysis. The bootstrapping procedure was used to compute 97.5% confidence intervals for the indirect effects. Table 4 shows that CBE alone is not a mediator of the relationship between GWP and GPI (GWP → CBE → GPI, β = −0.007, p = 0.620). The same is true for CBE as a single mediator of GPI through GWOM (GWP → CBE → GWOM → GPI, β = −0.003, p = 0.617). When green trust is added (effect 7), the mediation becomes significant, which is also the case for the significant mediation path between GWP → GTRUST → CBE → GWOM → GPI. Thus, CBE mediates the relation between GWP and GPI through GTRUST AND WOM. Furthermore, green trust is also a mediator (effect 3) of the relationship between GWP and GPI (β = −0.143, p = 0.004), and becomes stronger when adding green WOM (β = −0.182, p = 0.000), which revealed to be the strongest mediation effect in the model (effect 6). In agreement with the studies of Chen & Chang [15] and [22], this research establishes the negative relation between greenwashing perception and green trust. Consumers when faced with greenwashing tend not to trust the company and the company's products anymore and may not be willing to establish long-term relationships [2]. Consequently, confirming the relation between green trust and green purchasing intentions (H3), this lack of green trust generated by perceived greenwashing will impact negatively green purchasing intentions, since consumers tend to associate themselves with trustful ethical companies [24]. This relationship becomes stronger when adding green WOM because this research confirms that green trust is positively associated to green WOM (H8). Thus, when a consumer trusts a certain brand, he/she will recommend and say good things about the brand to others [41]. Therefore, when a consumer perceives greenwashing, he/she will tend to distrust the brand and its products [15,22] and will consequently talk and warn other consumers about it [40,41], and as result his/her intention to buy from that brand will decrease [6,15].
Overall, given that the direct effect between greenwashing perception and green purchasing intention is not significant, and both the indirect and the total indirect effects are significant (except for effect 1 and 4), full mediation can be defended [50]. This is also supported by applying the variance accounted for (VAF) index to the total indirect effect ( Table 4). When the VAF has an outcome above 80%, a full mediation can be assumed [51]. Thus, it can be concluded that 89.9% of the total effect is due to the seven mediation effects jointly.
Results also demonstrate that the confidence interval of all indirect effects (except effects 1 and 4) does not contain 0, and thus suggests mediation is established. However, for effects 1 and 4 the indirect effect is not significant and thus there is no mediation effect. Table 4 shows the full results.

Conclusions
Contributions of the current study are twofold. First the study shows that green advertising efforts can easily backfire, especially when they are misleading and discrepant with real environmental performance, making greenwashing a significant barrier to the progress of green marketing. In terms of theoretical contributions, this research explored the influence mechanism of greenwashing perception on green purchasing intentions by considering the mediating role of green trust, CBE, and green WOM. Results show that greenwashing perception does not negatively impact greenwashing perception directly. However, this relationship was found to be mediated by green trust and green WOM. The study shows that greenwashing has five ways to negatively affect consumers' green purchasing intention. The first is that greenwashing negatively influenced green purchasing intentions indirectly through green trust. Greenwashing erodes green trust, a fundamental building block of green purchase intention. The second way is that greenwashing negatively influences green purchase intentions indirectly via their green WOM. As in the previous finding, greenwashing erodes green WOM, which is a necessary requirement to increase green choice. Third, it would impact the relationship negatively indirectly through green trust together with CBE. Fourth, greenwashing affects green purchase intention through green trust together with green WOM. Lastly, the negative effect occurs through green trust, together with CBE and green WOM.
Second, the study makes important contributions to practice. One of the big challenges for companies nowadays is to raise green trust in a context of growing popularity of greenwashing practices. Therefore, companies should incorporate environmental concerns and responsibility in their core values and communicate their green efforts and attributes consistently and coherently with the company's overall strategies and actions. ESG disclosure, although a fundamental tool to increase trust, loyalty and performance, must be consistent and show stable efforts to change environment policies [8][9][10]. Therefore, companies should avoid spreading misleading green ads or environmental messages with the sole purpose to insert themselves in this new "green trend". In fact, this can be more damaging if consumers perceive that environmental concern does not fit the company's core values, identity and overall activity, and that it may be just an easy path to profit. Thus, consumers need to trust companies' green efforts and motivations, and a better way to accomplish this is by communicating green efforts in a clear and honest way, embedding this environmental concern and responsibility in the company's core values and identity. In addition, the significant mediating effect of green WOM also suggest that companies need to strengthen this to encourage green purchasing intentions. By maintain good levels of green trust, consumers will be willing to spread green WOM and consequently buy more products from that brand. In this technological and social media era, managers should be attentive and monitor social platforms where they can gain insights into what is being said about their brand or product, and even collect suggestions for green improvements. By knowing what consumers feel and what they share about the product's environmental features or performance, managers can develop and better adjust the strategies to maintain consumers happy and meet their environmental expectations.
Although this research makes contributions to the research on the effects of greenwashing, it is also subject to several limitations. First, other possible mediating effects may be helpful to a better understanding of this relationship, such as green skepticism, brand loyalty and brand love, which was used to confirm there were no differences in the brands used in the study. Future research can also take in consideration the importance of green features compared to other products attributes (e.g., price, quality, accessibility, brand familiarity) in consumers' green purchasing intention criteria. Data Availability Statement: Data available on request due to restrictions e.g., privacy or ethical.

Conflicts of Interest:
The authors declare no conflict of interest.