Green washing has been replaced by the green hushing

South Pole, an organization that helps companies meet their sustainability goals, has released a third edition of its annual report that looks at how companies meet net zero goals benaderen.In the report surveyed the organization’s more than 1,200 private companies with a sustainability or CSR head and who it labeled as “leaders” in climate action.

A striking trend highlighted by the report this year is that of the so-called “green hushing”. This refers to the increase in less publicly focused communication of science-based goals (SBT), which makes these goals more difficult to control and can limit knowledge exchange.

The report argues that this practice can lead to missed opportunities to work together on a low-carbon economy and create the impression that climate leaders are failing to lead the way in the public interest.

Almost a quarter of the companies analyzed had indicated that they did not want to make their SBT public. These were mainly companies located in Belgium, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

South Pole suggested a range of possible causes for this factor, such as fear of criticism and the mounting pressure of increasing claims about greenwashing, which could make companies less likely to disclose their objectives.

While the 2021 SBTi Progress Report identified the UK and France as two of the regions where organisations most often set such targets, the survey found that French respondents were the least likely to disclose their SBTS. According to the report, this could be because France is one of the few countries where there is explicit regulation on climate claims by companies.

South Pole’s climate commitment database further revealed that of the 68,000 companies analyzed, only seven percent had set a net-zero target. Despite this low number, the majority of net-zero targets, namely those below sixty percent of companies, were supported by scientifically based emission reduction milestones.

About sixteen percent of the companies in the database have committed to achieving net zero by or before 2030, while 25 percent have set a date between 2031 and 2040.