When Green Companies Opt for Hush Over Hype

Wren Montgomery is one of the leading experts in greenwashing. So whenever she comes across firms that keep quiet about their sustainability efforts rather than brag about them, her spider sense is activated: What are they hiding?

A conversation with a friend who worked at a winery in Ontario’s Niagara Region forced her to reconsider that assumption. Her friend told her that the winery was a well-known Canadian producer with a strong track record in sustainable operations, yet you wouldn’t know that judging by the firm’s marketing materials. They deliberately downplayed their impressive environmental credentials and certifications.

This winery was “doing the best they absolutely could on sustainability” in a competitive industry, says Montgomery, Quinn Professor of Sustainability at Smith School of Business. Yet they chose not to use that selling point as a differentiator.

Taking a low-key marketing approach to sustainability and social performance is not unusual. According to a 2024 Corporate Transparency Index study, 58 per cent of companies surveyed under-promote their progress in environmental, social or governance (ESG) metrics. The practice is known as greenhushing. While greenwashers talk up environmental acts and aspirations without delivering on them, greenhushers “walk the talk” — but without talking.

It seems like a puzzling corporate decision, given that sustainability is an increasingly valuable business signal for consumers, investors, employees and other stakeholders. Why would a company that has invested in environmentally responsible practices choose not to publicize them? 

Why hush and not hype?

Previous research, built mostly on large quantitative datasets, has identified several strategic reasons for greenhushing. Companies may worry that investors or shareholders would regard environment-related spending as wasteful, or fear regulatory or political repercussions. Or that they would be exposed to accusations of hypocrisy if they fell short of their goals.

But none of these reasons explained why the Niagara winery chose to keep its environmental bona fides under wraps. Their decision was made not out of defensiveness or grand strategic planning, but out of a gut-level dissatisfaction with how competitors played fast and loose with sustainability claims.

Montgomery wondered if other winery executives felt the same way. She enlisted colleagues Jennifer Robertson (Western University) and Catherine Summers (University of Michigan), both Queen’s University alumni, to dig deeper.

In their peer-reviewed study, the team conducted 48 in-depth interviews with winery owners and winemakers across Niagara, California and Oregon’s wine country, backed by 29 informal interviews and extensive observational data. In each of these locations, they heard the same story: wineries that were genuinely adopting sustainable practices often chose not to say anything about them.

In a few cases, the familiar strategic reasons came up. But interviews with winery executives revealed something more subtle that quantitative studies had missed: greenhushing can be personal, emotional and rooted in organizational identity. 

That is particularly apparent in an industry where producers feel a strong connection to their land. “It's a lot of blood, sweat and tears,” Montgomery says. When growers believe they are protecting their soil, water and ecosystems, discovering that another producer is making exaggerated environmental claims can feel like a personal affront.

The three faces of rejection

Such reactions help explain why a company would reject the language and promotion of sustainability while continuing sustainable practices. According to the study conducted by Montgomery and her colleagues, and published in the journal Organization Studies, rejection showed up in one of three ways.

Rejection of the machinery. In some cases, wineries felt constrained by the marketing of sustainability. They viewed sustainability branding and certification as either too expensive to maintain at scale or too rigid to adapt to changing business conditions.

Rejection of the rhetoric. Others were disillusioned by softened standards and by competitors dressing up modest efforts in green-friendly language. “To make it possible for basically every winery to carry that green leaf designation, it got pretty watered down,” one winemaker told the researchers. Rather than associate with a category they perceived as diluted, these firms retreated to controlled, in-person channels, such as cellar-door conversations, rather than share label claims.

Rejection of sustainability as a marketing identity. Some operations preferred to be known simply as makers of high-quality, traditional wine — treating sustainable practices as the means to quality rather than the marketing story in its own right. As one winemaker put it, “We’re downplaying it because that’s just how you make good quality wine.” 

Running through all three forms of rejection was a recurring theme: rampant greenwashing had devalued the entire category. “I’ve seen too much greenwashing, and greenwashing pisses me off,” said one winery owner.

Opaque terminology, devalued claims

In Montgomery’s view, the entire sustainability communication ecosystem has been polluted. As environmental claims proliferated, sustainability terminology became increasingly difficult for consumers to interpret. Labels, certifications and terms such as “eco-friendly” and “clean” became ubiquitous. Sustainability claims have become devalued. “It’s insidious, green everything,” she says.

Some companies may not want to have any part of it, but their absence makes it easier for greenwashers to dominate. In Montgomery’s view, this amounts to more than a communications problem; it’s a market failure. If consumers cannot tell which companies have legitimately incurred the costs of becoming more sustainable, the companies that invest in genuine improvements may be at a competitive disadvantage. “If we had full information, the green product should demand a premium,” she explains. “With greenwashing, investors and consumers looking for the green product can’t find it. It’s anti-competitive. The brown products (carbon-intensive or pollution-heavy goods) drive out the green ones because they don’t have the same costs.”

That insight — greenwashing doesn’t just mislead consumers, it punishes honest competitors — shaped her testimony to Canada’s Competition Bureau on Bill C-59, the federal government’s greenwashing legislation, and is now the focus of her new SSHRC-funded research stream. “The harm that’s being done is on honest, often smaller, often innovative companies,” she says.

For greenhushers that have a genuine sustainability story to tell but don’t want to be associated with greenwashing, there are alternative strategies.

Montgomery is co-author (with Tom Lyon of University of Michigan) of From Greenwash to Green Trust, to be published in January 2027. In it, she offers blunt advice to well-meaning firms trying to contend with the onslaught of greenwashing: Stop relying on labels like “sustainable” or “eco-friendly”. These vague terms are easy for greenwashers to co-opt and hard for honest firms to defend. Instead, communicate measurable actions: reduced water use by a defined percentage, specific chemicals eliminated, a transparent roadmap for greening operations. Concrete claims are harder to fake and easier for stakeholders to evaluate. 

Above all, she suggests not retreating from the conversation. Consumers and stakeholders are looking for firms they can trust.

“Openness is sometimes hard for companies,” she says. “But what we’re seeing, especially with younger generations, is they’re just not buying it. They want to know who you are and what your values are, and they want to see the proof in the pudding. So, please don’t pull back. The planet needs your voice.”