Greenwashing or sustainability misalignment? Analysing organisational workplace and real estate strategies through an iceberg lens

Environmental sustainability and the broader Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) agenda have become prominently proclaimed organisational priorities, yet their integration into core decision-making remains uneven. While greenwashing research has largely focused on communication and disclosure, it has paid less attention to the internal strategic dynamics that underpin sustainability outcomes. This paper examines how environmental sustainability and ESG shape organisational decision-making in workplace and corporate real estate (CRE) strategies. Drawing on organisational culture and institutional theory, the study adopts an iceberg perspective, conceptualising sustainability as a visible commitment underpinned by less visible strategic, cultural, and institutional dynamics. Using a mixed-methods design, the study combines quantitative analysis of two waves of large-scale survey data from senior CRE professionals with qualitative insights from semi-structured interviews with employees, senior executives, and CRE managers. The findings show that sustainability and ESG considerations may be unevenly associated with workplace and CRE strategies. It revealed that sustainability may be largely peripheral to future strategic decision-making, with stronger links to workplace adjustments than to fundamental CRE portfolio decisions. Qualitative evidence further shows that economic, operational, and social priorities dominate stakeholder workplace considerations, while organisations weakly prioritise environmental sustainability in routines. The study shows that sustainability may be rhetorically prominent yet strategically peripheral, reframing sustainability misalignment as an underlying strategic integration challenge that spans business, organisational strategy, and sustainability research, and offering insights for organisations seeking to align ESG commitments more effectively with asset-intensive strategies.