Green, hushed, and washed – why companies are quieter on climate control

© Stefan Hermans

Last week, a new rule proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to tackle ‘greenwashing’ was thrown out. The law, Enhanced Disclosures by Certain Investment Advisers and Investment Companies About Environmental, Social, and Governance Investment Practices, was an attempt, under the leadership of former SEC chair Gary Gensler, to formalise the backlash against firms misleading shareholders about their green intentions.

The law would force firms marketing themselves as “sustainable” and “green” to meet certain investment criteria.

A President Trump bête noire, Mr Gensler was also a proponent of regulating cryptocurrency markets. He stepped down in November to be replaced by Paul Atkins.

In an acknowledgement of the pivotal role of “bullshitting” in the US economy, the anti-greenwashing proposal was discarded on 12 June.

“The commission does not intend to issue final rules with respect to these proposals,” the SEC said on its website. “If the commission decides to pursue future regulatory action in any of these areas, it will issue a new proposed rule.”

Perhaps the most successful green propaganda of all time was the 2004 conception of the ‘carbon footprint’ by advertising genius firm Ogilvy & Mather, for BP. “What’s your carbon footprint?” an oil henchman would demand to know, as though punters ambling home from the bingo hall were personally digging boreholes in the Permean Basin. The strategy would be embraced by oil majors to try and persuade ordinary people that their choices – and not those of governments, carmakers, private equity, and, well, them – were responsible for the state of the planet.

In the decades that followed its PR master-stroke, the fossil fuel industry bought cheaply the right to blanket its marketing materials with images of wind turbines and verdant landscapes, investing 1%-4% of capex in renewables annually, while taking in around 7% of global GDP in subsidies.

But as of 2025, ‘greenwashing’, like all marketing, is diminishing in its effectiveness. Crowdsourced research from social media has made misleading claims, easier to debunk than ever.

Apple was the target of a class-action lawsuit when tree-planting projects in Kenya and China, supposed to offset the carbon emissions from the iWatches, were found to have minimal effect on the environment. In a case study of the ineffectiveness of afforestation projects as an emissions offset, the Kenya Chyulu Hills project was concerned not with planting of new trees, but rather, a pledge not to cut down an existing forest – one that was already legally protected from deforestation since 1983. Meanwhile, the Chinese Guinan project was concerned with an area of land which was already forested, and would have been so without Apple’s involvement.

Keurig ran afoul of the SEC when it claimed its coffee pods were recyclable (they weren’t). And last year, Shein got into trouble with Italian authorities for implying, on its website, that garments in its “evoluShein” collection could be recycled after wearing (they couldn’t).

Perhaps out of a desire not to be caught out, then, firms have adopted a different strategy, which has earned an even more obnoxious moniker: ‘greenhushing’. Preferring to beg forgiveness rather than ask for permission, companies have decided that safest time to boast about green targets is after they are achieved.

Discuss them before, though, and you are just asking to be held to account – or worse, accused of greenwashing.

Recently, The Loadstar heard that the carmaker customers of UECC have specifically asked the line to “hide” efforts to purchase biofuel for green insetting. As the logic goes, an outspoken commitment to insetting leaves them on the hook for transparency and accounting work they do not care to do.

“We’ve had some very interesting discussions with our customers, where they have said, ‘well, if we can hide it in a bunker adjustment factor, then we can do it’,” said Daniel Gent, UECC energy & sustainability manager. “My impression is that they are often scared … that people will question them, and they haven’t got that biofuel provenance information, because they haven’t done that due diligence.”

In aircraft, many are sceptical that growth in the carbon-intensive aviation business is even compatible with the aim of tackling climate change. Here, the greenhushing strategy appears to have manifested in a paring-down of ambition in future designs, to avoid spooking shareholders. In March, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury described the company’s latest design for a narrow-body jet as “evolutionary, rather than revolutionary” – despite the fact that it might feature an open-rotor engine, a design from the late 1980s, which could improve fuel efficiency by 15% to 20% over today’s turbofans.

Meanwhile, Boeing has shelved the X-66 demonstrator project, with its extra-wide aspect ratio truss-braced wings, and is redeploying engineers to support the delayed 777X and 737 MAX programmes.

“Manufacturers keep kicking the can down the road … the market is stagnant,” said Carlos López de la Osa, aviation technical manager at Transport & Environment (T&E), today. “For aircraft technology to have the chance to make a dent in emissions and energy consumption by 2050, we urgently need strong policies and market incentives.

“If it shifted its focus away from pleasing its shareholders and towards aviation’s decarbonisation, Airbus designs could be game-changers for the commercial aircraft market.”

Another case of greenhushing comes in relation to Scope 3, where well-intentioned early adoption has stung several big firms by disclosing just how much of their CO2 emissions are supply chain-based – usually, more than 80%. After California made Scope 3 reporting mandatory, and New York, Colorado, and Washington have expressed an interest in joining them, corporate lobbyists across the US are frantically pushing the Trump administration to ‘un-open’ this Pandora’s box at federal level. Needing little encouragement, Mr Trump signed Executive Order 14260, “Protecting American Energy From State Overreach”, in early April.

An overcorrection against greenwashing, then, has left firms unwilling to divulge their green targets, and even helpful green tweaks to their businesses. Though it might be reassuring to know that more could be being done about the climate than open discussion suggests – a conservative culture ensures that innovators will continue to feel like the exception, rather than the rule.