Greenwashing and Greenhushing: The Dual Challenges of Sustainability Communication
Businesses face a delicate balancing act in their environmental communications. Across the sustainability communication landscape, two challenges have arisen: the widely recognised pitfall of ‘greenwashing’, the exaggeration of environmental credentials, and the newer phenomenon of greenhushing, where companies intentionally understate or ‘hush’ their sustainability efforts. As Joshua Hilton notes in his 2025 journal article, greenhushing is a management strategy undertaken by firms why they seek to navigate conflicting pressures by selectively disclosing, or refusing to disclose, their sustainability efforts. Both present significant challenges for businesses navigating stakeholder expectations and verbalising sustainability action.
Greenwashing: When Green Claims Outpace Reality
In our last blog, we outlined what greenwashing is. At its core, greenwashing takes place when companies make environmental claims that are misleading, vague, or unsubstantiated. This practice has become increasingly prevalent as businesses seek to respond to growing consumer concern for sustainable action and practice.
Common Greenwashing Tactics
1. Vague Terminology and labelling: Using words such as "eco-friendly,"conscious”, "natural," or "green" without specific metrics or definitions.
2. Hidden Trade-Offs: Highlighting one environmental benefit while ignoring significant environmental costs elsewhere in the product lifecycle.
3. Unsupported Claims: Emphasising environmentally beneficial attributes that are insignificant to the product's overall impact or that are not backed up by data.
4. Visual Manipulation: Using green imagery, nature scenes or wording to create an impression of environmental responsibility.
The consequences of greenwashing have grown more severe. Regulatory bodies including those across the UK have intensified enforcement against misleading environmental claims, while consumers have become more skilled at identifying and rejecting sustainability messaging devoid of substance. Moreover, reputational damage from exposed greenwashing can be substantial and long-lasting.
Greenhushing: The Strategic ‘Silence’
As scrutiny of environmental claims has increased, a countertrend has emerged: greenhushing. As noted above, this involves companies deliberately downplaying or remaining silent about their sustainability initiatives and achievements.
Why Companies Greenhush
1. Keeping Under the Radar: Due to fear of criticism, companies are concerned that any environmental claim, even legitimate ones, may invite scrutiny and accusations of greenwashing.
2. Concern About Future Performance: Companies may hesitate to publicise sustainability goals if they are uncertain that they can achieve this consistently over time.
3. Avoidance of Stakeholder Pressure: By not broadcasting accomplishments, companies avoid raising expectations about future performance.
4. Regulatory Uncertainty: Evolving reporting requirements and standards create compliance concerns for public sustainability claims.
As environmental concern grows and the onus for companies to take positive action increases, greenhushing creates its own problems. It deprives stakeholders of information they are increasingly demanding. In particular, it reduces the positive market pressure dynamics that transparent reporting creates within industries and amongst firms, potentially slowing broader industry progress toward sustainability.
Finding the Balance is essential. Between the extremes of greenwashing and green hushing lies a path of authentic communication that serves both business interests and genuine sustainability progress, allowing companies to transparently share their environmental efforts while maintaining credibility and driving meaningful change.
Best Practices for Credible Sustainability Communication
Specificity and Substantiation: Replace vague claims with specific, measurable achievements backed by data.
Transparency About Challenges: Acknowledge areas where progress is difficult or incomplete alongside successes.
Contextual Reporting: Place achievements in proper context, including the company's overall environmental footprint.
Third-Party Verification: Utilise respected external verification for environmental claims when possible.
Consistent Progress: Demonstrate ongoing commitment through regular updates showing continuous improvement.
Proportional Communication: Ensure the volume and prominence of sustainability messaging correlate with actual environmental impact.
The Way Forward
As sustainability communication matures, the most successful companies will be those that reject both the exaggerated claims of greenwashing and the strategic silence of greenhushing. Instead, they will embrace transparent, fact-based communication that acknowledges both progress and challenges.
This balanced approach builds genuine trust with increasingly sophisticated stakeholders while contributing to the collective knowledge needed to address our shared environmental challenges. In an era of climate urgency and heightened expectations for corporate responsibility, neither overstating nor understating sustainability efforts serves the long-term interests of businesses or society.
The companies that will thrive are those that replace both greenwashing and greenhushing with authentic communication – grounded in data, transparent about challenges, and committed to continuous improvement in environmental performance. Importantly, even if gear shift in a positive or negative direction, it means communicating honestly and openly.
