In the sustainability era, one the most consequential threat to brand-consumer relationship is the corporate Greenwashing. From just being perceived as an ethical concern to impacting brands commercial success this threat has evolved which requires serious attention.

While the threat is real, the literature that connects perceived greenwashing to the two constructs that ultimately determine a brand's commercial survival - brand trust and brand loyalty - remains fragmented across disciplines, industries, and theoretical traditions.  

The research results presented in this study were obtained through a systematic literature review that is conducted on 87 papers indexed in Scopus from 2014 to 2026 following the methodology of PRISMA. It describes the bibliography of the field and a review of the literature regarding the relationship between greenwashing perceptions, brand trust and brand loyalty, as well as identifies a set of moderating variables (transparency, authenticity, capability reputation, generational cohort) and mediating variables (skepticism, cynicism, guilt, perceived hypocrisy) that have been previously found. What the synthesis shows is that there is an under-theorized gap which is structurally significant. It indicates, while the erosive impact of greenwashing perception on brand trust is well documented and while brand trust is known to be an antecedent to brand loyalty, fewer than 6% of the entire corpus of the literature actually model brand loyalty as a trust-based end outcome of greenwashing perception. So, there's a huge research miss, people know about the negative effects of greenwashing on brand trust and they know at least from general marketing that brand trust translates to brand loyalty. However, when you examine the studies on ‘greenwashing' very few (fewer than 6%) make this kind of leap and pair brand loyalty as the ultimate goal with brand trust as the connecting link. Most studies cut short and end the story when the customer is making a purchasing decision, when they are satisfied, or even when they are speaking favourably about the product. This study takes a step to fill that gap, which we refer to as the Greenwashing-Trust-Loyalty (GTL) Cascade. In this context, brand trust is the centrepiece that connects the perception of greenwashing and the realization of loyal customers, both in their thinking, feeling and doing. The framework also considers some factors that could modify this process, such as the transparency of a brand's communication, the authenticity of people thinking of a brand and even the age of its consumers. We present 12 specific research propositions along with and a future research agenda spanning methodological, contextual, and measurement priorities. The review contributes a theoretically integrative, empirically substantiable roadmap for scholars seeking to close the loyalty-outcome gap in the greenwashing literature...