Meanings
- uncountableA tendency of a company’s marketing to be quiet about its sustainability efforts so as to avoid attention from the political extremes, whether greener-than-thou anti-greenwashing crusaders or browner-than-thou anti-wokeness crusaders.
1 more example
So-called greenhushing, where corporations downplay their climate efforts, has spread in the US and Europe as ESG strategies fall out of fashion. Some companies are talking less about environmental and social goals in an effort to avoid accusations of greenwashing, while also dodging political attacks against climate and ESG goals, studies have found. “The problem with greenhushing or transition-hushing is that it doesn’t help the financial system mobilize capital,” Oi-Yee Choo, the exchange’s chief executive officer, told the Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit in Singapore on Tuesday.
2025 July 29, Ishika Mookerjee, David Stringer, “Greenhushing Can Keep Costs Higher, Climate Impact X CEO Says”, in Bloomberg, archived from the original on 29 Jul 2025
Origin
Blend of greenwashing + hushing. Coined by American brand strategist Jerry Stifelman in a blog for the consulting agency TreeHugger published the 2nd of March 2008.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
greenhushing. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/greenhushing
“greenhushing.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/greenhushing. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “greenhushing,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/greenhushing.
Source: greenhushing on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.