I recently ran across a LinkedIn post offering guidance to “sustainability consulting companies and climate tech start ups” whose business is negatively impacted by green hushing trends. Putting it in a broader context and through the lens of my LegalESG panel last week, I found a particularly interesting – and compelling – thought for any ESG/sustainability practitioner facing green hushing in their own company.
The original post lays out five strategies for consulting and climate tech firms to combat green hushing, including these two:
- Targeting regulatory compliance. Compliance is non-discretionary, so any sustainability activity or disclosure under regulatory, permit or contractual terms must be done. Those are business imperatives.
- Highlighting services that discreetly embed ESG/sustainability. While I’m not a fan of how the author positioned this (“offering a discreet option to assuage any doubt your customers may have about their ability to continue ‘hushing’ while working with you”), it does acknowledge that many roads lead to Rome. That is an important idea.
Well … what if companies didn’t have to consider green hushing in the first place because they simply operate in compliance with legal mandates and approach sustainability/ESG as a core part of business? Sustainability reporting would just be business reporting, eliminating the need to call out sustainability/ESG separately – and along with it, the basis for claims you are avoiding discussing the topics.
For years, sustainability/ESG professionals have played two sides of the fence – pushing to get integrated into the business, while concurrently fighting to be seen – and report – as something separate. This has created unintended expectations by media and some stakeholders. Concern about green hushing is an opportunity to recalibrate our approach.
ESG/sustainability leaders, staff and advisors: Rather than seeing green hushing as a problem, use it as a chance to show where ESG/sustainability links to key business activities and strategies so tightly that it doesn’t need to be called out separately. Help build business reporting, soften your stance on being “separate but equal”, rely less on non-financial reporting where possible – ultimately reducing green hushing risk. Perhaps it won’t work in every situation or be acceptable to every audience but it is worth evaluating.
Our members can learn more about greenwashing/greenhushing here.
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