Greenwashing in Nigeria, What It Is, How It Gets Caught, and What It Costs

Greenwashing is no longer a reputational risk at the margins of Nigerian corporate governance. It has become a compliance and capital access risk that touches companies across every sector and size — from listed multinationals managing NGX ESG disclosure obligations to private companies seeking DFI financing and SMEs entering supply chains with environmental and social conditionality. This article does not argue that Nigerian companies are acting in bad faith. In many cases, the gap between what a company discloses and what it can actually evidence reflects institutional immaturity in non-financial reporting — a system that has not yet been built to the standard its claims require. That distinction matters, because the remedies for immaturity differ from the remedies for deception....