Greenhushing: Why Companies are Silencing their Sustainability Goals🤫

23% of all the companies with a net zero and science-based emission reduction target chose to shush them down!

What's The "Business" Here?🧐

We all know about greenwashing, where companies exaggerate and claim to be sustainable when they are not! But now, many companies are brushing their sustainability goals under the couch, not because they're lazy (like you were with those crumbs under yours) but for reasons that remain hushed themselves! This is greenhushing.

Thank you — no, thank you, companies, because this "business" is not doing any good.

Yet, they decide to hush their goals.

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Why Would They, Just Why —? 🤷

There may be many reasons and perspectives for this, but today every conversation turning controversial or offensive might have added to it. We have entered that world of communication where you are doomed if you do and doomed if you don't; you're damned either way!🥲

Companies fear that these claims would lead to higher expectations, increasing scrutiny and resulting in the "gotcha" phenomenon. Basically, these companies are afraid of becoming "the employee who actually works" under their boss.

Moreover, companies are not confident enough in their promises. What if they are unable to live up to their claims? They are often afraid of becoming infamous because of these.

People generally look down on sustainable products, assuming they can't efficiently "get the job done". That's why these companies naturally select hushing over going public (pun intended). In other words, they want their policies to be their Khai Malik or Vamika Kohli, not publicly visible!

Are The Companies Over-Protective Parents? 🤔

Staying silent about such goals equals staying silent about sustainability in mass. Sustainability being a global issue, corporate transparency in sustainability will help increase awareness and act as an external source of motivation to keep them up each year!

Further, companies must admit imperfection. Not every claim can be met, and not every customer can be satisfied, and such imperfections should be seen as a step towards corporate transparency! Why do you think compilations of runway models tripping are famous? Are these models infamous for this? Or do you look down on them?

Finally, companies must choose partners with similar objectives. This comes along only when consumers choose sustainable and transparent companies.

The right way forward is "Zero-tolerance for hushing net-zero targets."

So don't quit shouting your sustainability goals at the top of your lungs. It's progress towards saving the environment even if you achieve 1% of it. As Benjamin Mays put it,

It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach.