A new information gap in sustainability

MOST people are familiar with the term “greenwashing,” which is the making of misleading claims by businesses that their products or practices are sustainable. Partly as a result of the understandable, and in most cases correct criticism of greenwashing, a new term has appeared in recent months: “Greenhushing,” which is the deliberate choice of companies not to publicize their climate-friendly actions and goals.

Although it may sound less harmful and perhaps even amusing, the practice of greenhushing can have serious consequences, particularly in a country such as the Philippines, where the risks of negative environmental impacts are high and sustainability policy necessarily must rely heavily on private sector cooperation.

A study conducted by the South Pole, a Switzerland-based climate consultancy and carbon offset developer, in January provides some dimension to the phenomenon of greenhushing. Out of 1,400 companies surveyed worldwide, about 70 percent said that they were reducing their sustainability messaging; examples included removing “green” features from product labeling, or not publicizing environmental or climate action initiatives.

However, 75 percent of the companies surveyed said that they were increasing their spending on emissions reduction and other sustainability measures; they just did not want to talk about it.

Paradoxically, this trend is increasing at a time when consumer demand for sustainable products and services is on the rise. Companies should be taking advantage of this, but instead an increasing number seem to be doing the exact opposite.

There seems to be a few reasons for this. Regulations on product claims vary widely from place to place. In some regions, such as Europe, they are quite strict, while in the Philippines they are much less so, and inconsistently enforced at that. Even though these are quite different regulatory environments, companies may be equally hesitant to publicize sustainability claims, even if they are sincere and backed by evidence.

In the European Union, the risk of running afoul of the law due to a procedure or documentation omission encourages some companies to err on the side of caution and avoid making any claim that might be challenged. The claim may be completely accurate and verifiable, but simply having it questioned may raise consumer skepticism.

In a less well-regulated environment like the Philippines, where enforcement against spurious product claims is spotty but tends to create a scandal when it does happen, other companies producing a similar product may fear being subject to consumer skepticism by association.

There are some real negative implications of greenhushing. As the experts associated with the South Pole study pointed out, sustainability claims — legitimate ones, of course — are one way to promote competition and push more businesses to adopt sustainability practices and goals. This is critical, because despite appearances to the contrary, the vast majority of companies have not; in a survey of 77,000 corporations globally, it was found that only 8 percent had formally adopted “net zero” or similar sustainability targets.

Another significant problem is that greenhushing makes progress toward climate action goals much harder to track, and this can have a negative effect on policy. The government must rely on the private sector for reporting progress, or the lack of progress, on critical indicators such as emissions and waste reduction. If this information is incomplete, then policy toward climate adaptation, mitigation and overall environmental sustainability may likewise be incomplete or misdirected.

The government should increase its monitoring of environmental and sustainability actions, as well as, of course, implementing firm rules to prevent greenwashing. To keep things under control, those rules should be developed first, and they can follow the general guidelines established by similar rules already adopted in the EU and other places. Any sustainabilityrelated claim should be reasonably specific — merely tagging a product as “eco-friendly,” for example, will not do — should be measurable or verifiable and should be properly documented.

After that is done, companies should be strongly encouraged to communicate their sustainability actions publicly, whether that involves changes to products, operations, or charitable or community actions. Companies already do report much of this as part of required corporate disclosures and annual reports, but the communication in this case falls more within the realm of marketing.

The resulting improvement in market appeal to consumers concerned about their own environmental footprint should be incentive enough for companies to do this, but the government could perhaps consider some tax or other perks to improve participation if necessary.