Many companies seem to be walking back climate pledges. The sad fate of the Net Zero Banking Alliance is a case in point. But if you peek behind the curtains of this seeming defeat, you’ll find a weird, counter-intuitive phenomenon that seems to be on the rise: many companies are actually continuing or even accelerating their climate goals, while also quietly scrubbing their public acknowledgement of them. In fact, in 2024, the consulting firm South Pole found that in some sectors across the world, the majority of surveyed companies are now intentionally talking less and less about their climate goals.
This practice stands in stark contrast to greenwashing—when companies crow about their sustainability without the bona fides to back it up—and its rise has spawned a flurry of studies and think-pieces about this practice. So here we take a look at this new phenomenon and ask: is greenhushing a step backwards for climate accountability—or is it simply companies side-stepping a bigger problem?
They know Trump is just a blip in what is otherwise a strong climate change mitigation desire in the world as a whole. They don’t want to make themselves a target of the MAGA cult, but once he dies and the cult implodes, they can go back to sharing it openly.