Business Communications Skills Assessment 1: Summary Report Analysis

This report addresses several critical business communication issues. It begins by highlighting a superannuation fraud case, where Australians are advised to check their accounts after a major fraud ring hacked into superannuation funds. The report then discusses the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) meeting minutes, noting wage stagnation and potential interest rate cuts, and their impact on consumer confidence. Finally, it examines the pervasive issue of greenwashing, detailing its increasing prevalence, the role of regulatory bodies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the negative consequences of misleading environmental claims. The report emphasizes the importance of consumer awareness and the need for organizations to adopt transparent and ethical practices to avoid greenwashing charges, referencing relevant research and examples.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Question 1
Australia’s super balance holders need to check their super balance on an emergency basis since
Major superannuation funds and the biggest retail sharebroker, CommSec are hacked by a fraud
ring.
Question 2
According to RBA’s last meeting minutes, wages growth appears to have stalled which is
leading to more interest cuts. While the low and middle tax offset may boost the household
income, consumers are getting highly concerned about the state of economy and hence the
confidence is down by 8 percent as well as consumer sentiment has fallen by 3.5 percent.
Question 3
Greenwashing , in spite of being a long known issue, has got increased to a great extent in recent
days. 98 percent of the products offered to the consumers are guilty of using this malpractice
(Seele and Gatti 2017). The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) being the agency to protect
consumers from green washing claimed to hold a series of workshops for consumers to clear
their ideas of green advertising (Miller 2017). An updated guidance to greenwashing hs been
planned by FTC. A per singer, the revision is expected to contain new definitional language for
terms like “sustainable” and ‘carbon neutral”. The issue of greenwashing will be addressed
through 3rd party certifications. Action has already been taken against organizations whose
claims of sustainability were founded to be false or misleading. According to case, the concept of
greenwash is highly harmful. Products that are being advertised as environment friendly are
causing harm to nature. According to researcher, one of the chief reason behind this is
governmental and nongovernmental organizations, acknowledges the term sustainable in various

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ways. The makers of indoor cleanings products are the worst offenders of Greenwashing.
According to researchers, along with indoor cleaning product manufacturing companies, other
companies like cosmetics and children’s product selling organizations, uses greenwashing to
enhance their sale and avoid regulation, when they evidence enhancement in demand for green
products. However which nuanced awareness of the consumers, it is highly crucial for the
organizations to avoid green washing charges and adopt appropriate polices. In order to feel up
the gap of lack of strong regulatory schemes, a good number of consumer and environmental
groups are keeping an eye on corporate green washing. Along with this a good number of Anti-
greenwashing blogs have been created in order point out products that are being greenwashed
(Hoepner et al. 2017). According to Davis Mallen, companies are getting more aware of the
danger associated with the mentioned malpractice for both the organization as well as the
environment. According to researchers, companies that already possess poor reputation in market
are more likely to enhance in greenwashing. However, with enhancing public outrage against
brands practicing the malpractice, within the following decade that rate of greenwashing is
expected to drop significantly.
While good numbers of green levels are available, organizations that provides green label after
thorough check up of the manufacturing processes are mostly trusted by the consumers. It is
expected that by incorporating effective strategies we will be able to eradicate greenwashing .

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Reference
Hoepner, A.G., Dimatteo, S., Schaul, J., Yu, P.S. and Musolesi, M., 2017. Tweeting About
Sustainability: Can Emotional Nowcasting Discourage Greenwashing?. Forthcoming in
Corporate Finance, 8.
Miller, T., 2017. Greenwashing sport. Routledge.
Seele, P. and Gatti, L., 2017. Greenwashing revisited: In search of a typology and accusation‐
based definition incorporating legitimacy strategies. Business Strategy and the
Environment, 26(2), pp.239-252.