Just three per cent of consumers think businesses are honest about their green credentials with a third believing they actively exaggerate what they are doing.

That is according to a new survey from BT of more than 600 consumers, which confirmed the presence of a serious mismatch between the business community's regard for its green initiatives and the public perception of companies' green claims.

The study, carried out by polling organisation YouGov and analyst firm Datamonitor, found that more than half of businesses with more than 500 employees claim to be taking significant steps to improve their environment performance while a further third claim they are doing everything they to enhance their green credentials.

However, consumers were deeply sceptical of businesses' environmental claims, while employees were similarly wary of green marketing efforts with nearly a quarter of respondents claiming they did not believe that the organisation they work for is environmentally and socially responsible.

The survey also implied that consumer scepticism is impacting firms' sales with more than a quarter of respondents claiming they had turned down a product or service in the past year on the grounds that the provider had a poor reputation for being socially or environmentally responsible.

Dinah McLeod, head of the sustainability practice for BT Global Services, said that consumer scepticism was understandable given the number of companies that were guilty of overstating their environmental credentials.

"There is a lot of greenwash out there," she said. "Too many companies are saying they are green with no real reason to back up those claims and consumers are increasingly aware of the basic steps companies should be taking to green their operations."

BT Global Services chief executive Tim Smart added that firms needed to be more transparent in their green communications efforts and work harder "to deliver evidence… that the story they are telling is credible and convincing".

McLeod agreed that firms needed to more clearly underpin green marketing messages with real corporate change.

"You have to have a story to tell," she observed. "BT recently announced it is spending £500m on building wind farms and that is the kind of figure that customers can’t really dismiss. It is those companies who try and jump on the green bandwagon with nothing to show for it that are going to get hit by the backlash."