Corporate sustainability messaging speaks much louder than measured impact, and a majority of business leaders suspect their organizations of greenwashing, according to a new survey from Google Cloud.

Conducted by The Harris Poll for Google Cloud, the survey reached 1,491 business leaders in 16 countries.

It found that 80% of executives give their organization an above average rating for environmental sustainability, and 86% of execs believe their sustainability efforts are "making a difference in advancing sustainability."

But just 36% of respondents say their organizations have ways to measure the impact of their sustainability efforts, and only 17% use that data to assess and improve their sustainability program.

This discrepancy illustrates what Justin Keeble, Google Cloud's managing director of global sustainability, describes as a "troubling gap" between how sustainable companies think they are and how accurately they can measure their positive environmental impact.

Suspicions of hypocrisy relating to corporate sustainability efforts don't just arise from the aforementioned data. Employees are suspicious too.

According to the report, 66% of respondents question how genuine their organization's sustainability initiatives are.

And the report found 58% of business leaders agree that their organization is guilty of greenwashing and overstating their sustainability efforts. Google Cloud defines greenwashing as "conveying a false impression or giving misleading information that says a company’s products or practices are more environmentally friendly than they actually are."

This is particularly prevalent in North America where 72% of business leaders consider their organization guilty of greenwashing, and 35% agree that their company "treats sustainability like a PR stunt."

Globally, executives in financial services and supply chain/logistics had the highest rates of admission with 66% and 65% respectively.

Part of this issue stems from a lack of reliable impact reporting. "Without accurate measurement, it’s hard to report genuine progress," Keeble explained.

The survey found 87% agree that if business leaders were more honest about the challenges they face in becoming more environmentally sustainable, they'd be able to make meaningful progress.

To that point, Google Cloud identified five main barriers executives face: lack of investment in the right technology (36%), lack of understanding or education (36%), relentless focus on growth and profit (34%), and lack of budget for sustainability efforts (34%).

But as more than half of executives reported their organization is only in the initial planning and implementation stages of sustainability transitions, there’s ample room for improvement, particularly in standardizing environmental measurement and government regulation on environmental reporting.