Corporations Now Largely Silent On Environmental Goals; Turns Out It's Hard To Tout What You Were Never Going To Do
Just a few years ago, pledges to tackle climate change were a staple of corporate PR. Amazon trumpeted its climate pledge and stamped it on the name of Seattle’s biggest arena. Walmart promised to slash a gigaton of carbon emissions from its supply chain, and the world’s largest money manager, BlackRock, with its $11 trillion in investments, pressured companies to come up with a plan to zero out their emissions by 2050.
Now, many corporations are avoiding the subject altogether. During earnings calls, mentions of many well-known terms related to the climate are down 76 percent compared to three years ago, according to a recent analysis of S&P 500 companies by Bloomberg. The sharpest declines came from financial firms and consumer discretionary companies, the category for those offering optional purchases, like Starbucks and Airbnb.
The hesitancy to talk about climate change — sometimes called “greenhushing” — could decrease pressure on the big corporate polluters that have been slow to cut their emissions. The trend has been linked to a growing backlash against sustainable investing, as well as a shifting political landscape with President Donald Trump’s second term underway. “I think large companies in particular today are very, very cautious,” said Hortense Bioy, the head of sustainable investing research for Morningstar, a financial services firm.
Companies have been caught in a tug-of-war: On one hand, investors are pressuring them to be serious about the risks of climate change to their business. On the other, the mention of any word related to so-called ESG — the polarizing acronym that refers to “environmental, social, and governance” investing — threatens blowback from the Trump administration. The way to thread the needle, experts suggest, is to stay away from flashpoints like ESG and talk specifically about the financial risks that the warming planet poses to companies.
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Bioy suspects that trend still has room to run, given Trump’s hostility to climate action. In December, corporations including Apple, Walmart, and Siemens failed to sign an open letter reaffirming their commitment to the Paris Agreement, a letter organized by the climate coalition they joined after Trump’s first presidential victory in 2016. Bioy pointed to the guidance circulating in government organizations warning against using terms like “pollution,” “clean energy,” and “climate science.” “Companies that do business with the administration or any state organization, they will be careful not to use those terms,” Bioy said. In the past, some companies have used language around climate change that embraced a moral framing, such as “do the right thing.” But most people don’t think that’s the province of what businesses should be doing, Marshall said. Two-thirds of Americans believe that businesses should avoid taking a stance on political issues, according to his firm’s research. The moral framing provokes backlash because it feels like “forcing an idea on somebody,” Marshall said. “We have seen it’s much more effective to have language in the business community that’s about money and reality.”
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https://grist.org/business/companies-climate-plans-trump-earnings-greenhushing/