Abstract This study examines the relationship between consumer awareness of greenwashing and green purchase intentions in the Indian fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market, focusing on green claim credibility as a mediating mechanism and environmental knowledge as a moderating factor. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey reportedly involving 450 Indian FMCG consumers was analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), composite reliability, the heterotrait–monotrait ratio (HTMT), and ordinary least squares regression within the Hayes PROCESS framework, employing 5,000 bootstrap resamples. The reported findings indicate that greenwashing awareness is negatively associated with green purchase intentions (β = −0.1941, p < .001) and green claim credibility (β = −0.2385, p < .001), whereas green claim credibility is positively associated with purchase intentions (β = 0.4271, p < .001). The estimated indirect effect is −0.1016, with a 95% bootstrap confidence interval of [−0.1435, −0.0627]. Environmental knowledge reportedly moderates the relationship between greenwashing awareness and purchase intentions (β = −0.1588, p < .001). The conditional association is statistically nonsignificant at low environmental knowledge (β = −0.0564, p = .1391) but significantly negative at high environmental knowledge (β = −0.3317, p < .001). The study integrates Signaling Theory and the Elaboration Likelihood Model to explain how claim credibility and environmental knowledge may shape consumer responses to environmental marketing communications. The findings highlight the importance of transparent, specific, and verifiable environmental claims in promoting credible sustainability communication and informed purchasing decisions.

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