Tools. You know greenwashing. But do you know what we don’t mean greenhushing, greenblaming or greenwhishing? Youmatter tells you everything about these words that hide the new evils of greenwashing!
Greenhushing (eco silence)
To live happily (and peacefully), let’s live hidden! This is the new communication precept followed by many brands in recent months on their environmental and particularly climate commitments. So much so that the greenhushing became the “new normal”according to a 2024 South Pole study.
Because after having communicated about green indiscriminately, the legal and reputational backlash calmed the enthusiasm, explains Mathis Navard, doctor in Information Sciences and communication at the IAE of Poitiers in an article on The Conversation . This is particularly the case with oil companies or sellers of consumer goods such as BP, Shell or Amazon. But the concept has also evolved, specifies the researcher. Until 2022, it mainly described communication aimed at reducing the dissonance between the ecological values of the company and those of customers. Now it basically refers to the absence of communication.
Greenwishing (eco desire)
There are those who say a lot and do little (the greenwashing classic). And there are those who want a lot…but who don’t get the expected results. This is sometimes what happens “when financial institutions truly believe in ESG but fail to achieve the impacts and results communicated and/or expected”underlines PwC Switzerland in a study published last year.
Of course, it happens that this is unintentional. But it can also be due to the fact that the company or the investor does not put a real strategy in place or does not set realistic objectives… Which is none other than greenwashing! For example, joining a Net zero alliance or announcing carbon neutrality trajectories without identifying the means to achieve them can entirely fall into this category. Be careful: financial regulators like the AMF in France are increasingly interested in this little trick, notes PwC.
Find out more: How to fight greenwashing?
Greenlighting (eco emphasis)
It’s the tree that hides the forest! Increasing the number of advertisements extolling the merits of the electric car when it only represents 5% of the manufacturer’s offering or highlighting its investments in renewable energies when the overwhelming majority of its activities are based on fossil fuels…The greenlighting is widely used by companies in their communication, underlines Planet Tracker in a report where it analyzes the latest fashionable tactics aimed primarily at investors.
The organization unveils a “Greenwashing hydra”, where techniques are increasingly sophisticated. Alongside the greenlightingwe will thus note the development of greenrinsing, where the company regularly changes its objectives and monitoring indicators, thus making their evaluation impossible, for example on climate or recycling trajectories. THE greenshifting consists of blaming others (for example when Shein explains that other clothing brands also pollute). And we talk about greencrowding when a company sneaks into an alliance which does not necessarily do much but which has the strength in numbers to impress, such as Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), which the NGO cites as a (bad) example.
Greenbotching
“Forget greenwashing, make way for greenbotching!” », assured the Financial Times a few months ago. This new avatar of greenwashing targets well-intentioned environmental measures but are so poorly implemented that they backfire. The market’s favorite British daily cites as an example the British government’s desire to push electric cars by banning the sale of new thermal vehicles in 2035 (like the EU)… But without ensuring the rapid implementation of a reliable charging network nor a strategy of reconversion of automobile manufacturers around batteries.
Result: many drivers have thrown in the towel due to the lack of charging stations, according to the FT. And a social breakdown is brewing among car manufacturers, warns the NGO Carbon Tracker. For the Financial Times, the conclusion is clear:“A negative consumer reaction to electric vehicles is bad for automakers and investors. Ultimately, it’s even worse for the planet.”
Greenblaming or greenbashing (eco reproach)
And we come to the evil of the moment: the practice which consists of ridiculing ecological practices, policies and opinions, denouncing them as excessive, even accusing them of all evils, even if it means using false arguments. It’s called the greenblaming where the green bashing. This strategy is adopted by many right-wing or far-right parties in Europe and around the world. Donald Trump is a good example. Just like the fringe of the agricultural movement which attacked environmental standards.
Many sectors are affected as shown in the Building Ecology note on the greenblaming. The authors dismantle the fallacious arguments used to call into question EPZs (Low Emission Zones) or heat pumps. This tactic is particularly disastrous because, playing on people’s fears, it aims – and is partly succeeding at the moment – to suspend, stop or roll back ecological transformation policies.
Find out more: “Carbon neutrality”, soon to be banned from marketing arguments on products
Illustration: Canva
