The warning comes in the professional accountancy group's new ‘how to’ guide: How SMEs can create a more sustainable world, which details the actionable steps to embed sustainability into a business, including ways to encourage, support, and advise organisations on how to do so.

The guide, which was produced in collaboration with Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ) states that greenwashing, which is where a company makes misleading claims about its environmental or social impacts without the evidence to back up the claim, is a rising problem as the momentum for sustainability grows.