Green lies and their effect on intention to invest

•We define greenwashing as a combination of misbehavior and misleading communication.•Green lies affect investment intensions more negatively than a misbehavior per se.•A new typology of greenwashing cases is developed, with four types of greenwashing.•Potential investors react differently to these proposed types of greenwashing. The article explores the consequences of greenwashing deceptions on intention to invest. It analyses whether the presence of a greenwashing lie to stakeholders is detrimental to intention to invest. When a company greenwashes, it deliberately deceives stakeholders about its environmental commitment. Our results suggest that greenwashing has a greater negative impact on intention to invest than a corporate misbehaviour unrelated to a deceptive communication. In order to understand how different forms of greenwashing may affect intention to invest, we develop a typology of greenwashing deceptions, based on the variety of greenwashing cases that have emerged recently. The results show that individuals are less inclined to invest in a company that falsifies its claims (falsification) and which engages in manipulative business practices (deceptive manipulation), as compared to a company that instrumentally selects which information to disclose (information selection) or tries to obscure misbehaviours through publicizing its good business practices (attention diversion).