The Power of Visibility

Greenwashing.

Greenhushing.

In case you’ve not been following along in your textbook, “greenhushing” is the opposite of “greenwashing.” And, if greenwashing is the act of misleading the public about the sustainability of your initiatives, then greenhushing is the act of being quieted or discouraged from talking about said initiatives— whether actually misleading or not. It's kind of a hyper-specialized censorship.

This is bad.

Greenhushing is bad for us, the environment and business. Let me explain.

I was born in the late 70s, which meant I was actively growing up and paying attention through the 80’s and 90s (remind me to tell you a funny story about seeing the ET movie seven times in a row in the theater). I grew up in a middle-class, loving household in a very small town in the South.

I always knew I felt… different. And by that I mean, different from the norm that I witnessed around me. I was a ‘quirky’ kid with serial obsessions: first was the ET phase, then the dolphin phase, then unicorns, HotWheels, Jimi Hendrix, etc., etc. I was dubbed a tomboy from my earliest memories— and I LOVED it. I owned it, not even fully understanding what ‘owning it’ would eventually mean. Fast forward to the future: I’m queer.

What does this have to do with Greenhushing? Oh, a lot, actually.

A big part of the reason it took me a very long time to figure myself out and figure out my place in the world is because there was VERY little visibility of queer people in the public eye until the very late 90s. Remember when Ellen came out and the shockwaves that caused? I was already in college. I was well into my twenties, in the early Aughts, standing in a bowling alley watching a Sheryl Crow music video when it occurred to me that I was gay. And let me be very clear on this point: everyone has their own individual journeys to figuring out who they are, despite all the visibility and reference in the world. It’s just for me, I grew up in a world with no gay folks in it. This was my barrier— I didn’t even know to look ‘there.’ And once gay and queer people started showing up in my life and in the public eye, I knew my life depended on that. I had reference for myself, and a vocabulary for how I felt.

Here’s my point: if we allow greenhushing, then we pause or hinder innovation industry-wide. We perpetuate a vicious cycle of inaction. We harm ourselves and keep sustainability from coming out because the visibility of progress, risk-taking, trying (and maybe failing) are hushed or hidden. Competition can relax, or not push as hard on this kind of risk for themselves because they’re not being actively challenged. Fewer companies, then, feel pressure to deal with uncertainty.

The visibility of companies trying to make sustainable change is important to making sustainable change.

Should there be action against misleading the public around sustainable claims? Absolutely! And, as the FTC Green Guides are updated and various other policies are passed this year, this hopefully will intelligently begin to do just that. We all need to be really buttoned-up about what we say. But, we can’t make each other afraid to try new things by punishing failure. The best company sustainability messaging talks about trying, failing and working on the next attempt.

Like everything else in sustainability, making sustainable claims is yet another very complex set of tasks, which can easily cross the fine line into misleading. I get the nuance of it. But we really have to ask ourselves and each other whether we’re actually afraid to do better because, “What will people think or say if it doesn’t work?”

Accusations of greenwashing have been valuable tools in challenging businesses to scrutinize the claims they make and the data they rely on—?resulting in some great standards to establish and uphold. But we just can’t allow it to overstep and prevent sustainable change.

I talk to several companies in my line of work. And most are desperate to make sustainable change, but completely afraid to talk about it, or worse, do anything at all. A part of this is: just as greenwashing can be completely deliberate, it can also be completely unintentional. What was considered sustainable five years ago is considered greenwashing now (e.g. claiming 100% recyclable or Eco-Friendly). And most of the folks making those claims were doing so because they thought that was enough, or true as far as they understood.

Navigating these sustainable waters is pretty rough— and to me, not very dissimilar from growing up and surviving being told I was going to Hell a few times for acting outside of societal norms. There were a few moments when it was so hard to keep going, not knowing what was ‘wrong’ with me. But the thing is, there are ways through— and as they say, “It Gets Better.”?I couldn't let these accusations stop me from being me, so I figured out ways to not let them.

Let’s talk about this and amplify the sustainable initiatives you want to undertake, or the initiatives you already have going. We must talk about the sustainable change that we’re making or attempting to make, out in the open.?

We must be ok with uncertainty and take the risk. Our lives depend on it.