{"id":2772,"date":"2025-09-18T11:44:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T10:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/?p=2772"},"modified":"2025-09-18T11:44:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T10:44:32","slug":"greenhushing-is-a-trend-that-leaves-businesses-downplaying-their-environmental-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/2025\/09\/18\/greenhushing-is-a-trend-that-leaves-businesses-downplaying-their-environmental-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Greenhushing\u2019 is a trend that leaves businesses downplaying their environmental wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many organisations highlight sustainability, but others deliberately downplay their efforts \u2014 a practice known as \u201cgreenhushing.\u201d Research into UK service industries, including hotels, reveals why businesses stay silent: fear of reputational risk, lack of confidence, and over-reliance on certifications. Yet this silence weakens transparency, accountability, and the potential for real environmental progress.<\/em><\/p>\n

Marta Nieto-Garcia<\/a> is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Portsmouth, Universidad de Salamanca; Diletta Acuti<\/a> is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Bath, and Nayla Khan is a PhD Candidate in Marketing at the University of Portsmouth. This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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These days, institutions and companies love to announce what they\u2019re doing to tackle the climate crisis. Terms like \u201csustainable\u201d, \u201cenvironmentally friendly\u201d and \u201clow-carbon\u201d are often used to trumpet messages about production and consumption. But in reality, the claims are not always accompanied by real, effective action \u2013 a shady practice known as greenwashing.<\/p>\n

But at the same time, other companies are not communicating their sustainability<\/a> actions.<\/p>\n

This phenomenon is known as \u201cgreenhushing\u201d<\/a> and it could be just as dangerous as greenwashing. When organisations downplay their efforts, the broader sustainability conversation can be weakened \u2013 and the opportunity for businesses to be agents of social change could be lost.<\/p>\n

But why would companies deliberately hide things that they are doing well?<\/p>\n

Our research<\/a> has investigated how and why organisations take part in greenhushing. We focused particularly on how this occurs in service organisations, such as those in the travel sector.<\/p>\n

First, we examined the communication strategies of 300 UK hotels across three channels: hotel websites, profiles on travel site Booking.com, and social media platforms. We found that 62% of UK hotel websites do not include sustainability information, with only 2% of social media posts referring to it.<\/p>\n

Although booking platforms signal the sustainability of hotels that have third-party certifications, hotel websites often don\u2019t provide much explanation in this regard. This highlights the gap between implementing practices and effectively communicating them to potential customers.<\/p>\n

Next, we dug deeper into the reasons for this by interviewing marketers across service sectors, including accommodation, food and wellness.<\/p>\n

We uncovered three main reasons for the tendency towards not communicating \u2013 or even hiding \u2013 sustainability actions. First, managers spoke of reputational risks, highlighting their fear of being accused of greenwashing.<\/p>\n

This is risky when companies are not genuinely committed to the sustainability cause, but instead adopt a superficial approach<\/a> to it. But when a business has genuinely made efforts towards more sustainable practices, transparent communication \u2013 supported by evidence of what action they have taken \u2013 could prevent damage to reputations.<\/p>\n

They could, for example, enrich their communications with photos of their environmental initiatives (things like before-and-after photos of an upgrade to energy-efficient lighting, for example).<\/p>\n

They could also demonstrate the effectiveness of their actions (how much they\u2019ve cut food waste, perhaps) or show their commitment to improving ecosystems (such as restoring green spaces at a location where they operate).<\/p>\n

Empower employees<\/h2>\n

Second, managers said they lacked confidence about the effectiveness of their sustainability practices. But this uncertainty stands in contrast to the increasing public demand for companies to take action on sustainability. Businesses need to make sure employees feel confident in talking about how powerful and meaningful their sustainability actions can be.<\/p>\n

To support this, organisations should ensure employees have the resources and systems to understand and engage in sustainability efforts.<\/p>\n

Providing tools that demonstrate the impact of their work on the planet can boost employees\u2019 confidence \u2013 and their motivation to make a difference. This involves not only offering performance measures but also creating a culture of care and implementing policies that strengthen employees\u2019 connections to nature in their communities.<\/p>\n

For example, companies might use immersive experiences<\/a> or visualisations<\/a> to help employees grasp the business\u2019s impact on the natural environment.<\/p>\n

Finally, many service managers highlighted that instead of communicating good practice, they relied on sustainability certifications provided by third-party institutions (such as the Booking.com Travel Sustainable programme) to do the talking for them.<\/p>\n

Trusted certification schemes can help consumers make decisions on who to buy from \u2013 or who to work for. But consumers don\u2019t always understand all these certifications. The sheer number can make it difficult for the public to know which ones are credible or relevant.<\/p>\n

Over-reliance on certifications can even be risky: scepticism towards some schemes means that consumers may lose trust in the business if the certification badge it displays loses credibility in some way. And taken alone, they may offer little insight into the specific actions a company may be taking.<\/p>\n

To build trust, it would be better for organisations to go beyond the label and provide clear, accessible, comprehensive information about their specific sustainability actions. Inviting employees to publicly share the company\u2019s commitments and initiatives can make its stance on sustainability more tangible and credible.<\/p>\n

Greenhushing is not just a missed marketing opportunity \u2013 it is a missed opportunity for progress. When companies choose to stay silent about their sustainability efforts for fear of negative consequences, it stifles discourse and limits the exchange of ideas that could inspire broader environmental change.<\/p>\n

Open communication lets businesses share best practice, acknowledge challenges and learn from one another. More importantly, it enables consumers to hold companies to account while encouraging and rewarding responsible behaviour. The sustainability dialogue needs to be nurtured so that businesses have the opportunity to act as genuine agents of social change.\"The<\/p>\n

All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the IPR, nor of the University of Bath.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many organisations highlight sustainability, but others deliberately downplay their efforts \u2014 a practice known as \u201cgreenhushing.\u201d Research into UK service industries, including hotels, reveals why businesses stay silent: fear of reputational risk, lack of confidence, and over-reliance on certifications. Yet...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1742,"featured_media":2773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[128,144,108,114,116,126,145],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-labour-market","category-climate-change","category-culture-and-policy","category-energy-and-environmental-policy","category-evidence-and-policymaking","category-science-and-research-policy","category-sustainability"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/115\/2025\/09\/Blog-Images.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1742"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}