Sustainability could use a rebrand in 2026

A new report in Harvard Business Review examined whether businesses are actually scaling back their climate commitments amid widespread headlines and a political environment that would suggest the end of corporate climate action. It found that some are. But the vast majority of big businesses are sticking with or even accelerating their climate work — they’re just not talking about it as much.

We all know the name of that silence: greenhushing. It’s made headlines from Newsweek to the Financial Times to the Economist this past quarter. The term sounds passive, even well-intentioned. In many ways it’s too polite to communicate its full consequence. Greenhushing inevitably gives way to something more pernicious: greenwasting. When companies make real progress, but fail to communicate it in ways that drive stakeholder confidence, value, or long-term relevance, it’s a market-level mistake that could leave companies exposed as climate-tied metrics become defining economic variables.

Energy and water access are quickly becoming two of the most critical constraints on business performance and growth, especially for sectors tied to AI, manufacturing, and supply chains – which, to be clear, is most businesses today.  

Markets will reward companies based on how well they’re managing these challenges and innovating to address them in the future. It’s already happening. Bloomberg reported on October 8 that the S&P Global Clean Energy Transition Index has surged close to 50% compared with the roughly 35% gain delivered by both the S&P 500 Index and gold over the same period.

In Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” projects from hyperscalers like Amazon and Google are delayed or downsized because of transmission bottlenecks and grid capacity constraints, a challenge also present in Texas and parts of Europe. Despite historic clean energy investment, transmission build-out and permitting delays mean many gigawatts of clean energy are not reaching the businesses that need them. It’s clearer than ever that companies able to secure reliable, affordable, and low-carbon energy will hold a significant strategic advantage.

Similarly, water scarcity is forcing hard decisions. In California, food manufacturers and semiconductor plants have had to halt expansion or reconsider site locations due to drought-driven water restrictions. Companies like Coca-Cola and Intel have publicly acknowledged the need to adapt operations to increasingly unpredictable water availability, revisiting everything from sourcing to production processes. Without a secure water strategy, companies face operational disruptions, reputational risks, and capital constraints.

Climate science can be debated or debunked. But this is not climate science, it’s tangible, documented business impact happening today. And there are many more that point to an inconvenient truth: every company is now a climate company in some form. Whether managing carbon, electrifying operations, shifting procurement practices, or adapting physical assets, business needs to respond to what has historically been seen as climate or sustainability issues to survive.

Corporate caution on climate communications is understandable. No company wants to overpromise or open itself up to criticism. But a comms strategy on sustainability and a willingness to speak with clarity and credibility, even in complex territory, will reward companies in the long term. 

What could that strategy be? 

Sustainability needs a rebrand in Corporate America. Let’s call it what it actually is.   

Sustainability is innovation. Sustainability is systems thinking. Sustainability is disruption. 

Leading companies understand this and communicators have an outsized role to play in unearthing and shaping these important stories and educating stakeholders on the benefit of telling them. 

This year Microsoft did more than just progress its own decarbonization. It pushed the market forward by helping customers track and reduce emissions with its Cloud for Sustainability tools and developed AI infrastructure optimized for energy efficiency and carbon transparency.

Throughout the past decade, AES did what legacy utilities rarely manage. It transitioned from coal-heavy roots into one of the world’s fastest-growing clean energy developers, completing over 3.5 GW of renewable projects, many directly tied to data center demand from companies like Amazon and Google. It was the one of the first companies operating at scale to bet on batteries. That business is now Fluence, a standalone company with a $2.5B market cap. More recently, AES built a robot to speed the installation of solar panels to power data center operations. 

Schneider Electric did what few industrials even attempt — it made a bet 20 years ago to embed sustainability into every layer of its business, from product design to digital energy management platforms, helping customers like hospitals, manufacturers, and hyperscalers slash emissions and energy use at scale. It played the long game on sustainability. While other industrials stagnated or broke apart, Schneider Electric grew. 

These leaders realized early that sustainability comms doesn’t have to be warm and fuzzy, kumbaya fare - that if it’s done right, it equates to bragging rights. 

It reminds me of my early career working in technology communications. Nobody mandated the application of technology, companies did it because it served them. They relished talking about how they used technology or built software to solve problems that their competitors couldn’t.  Remember when we couldn’t get away from the “digital transformation” vortex of death in corporate-speak? It wasn’t because people loved buzzwords. It was because tech worked. It solved problems, unlocked markets, and created value.

Of course technology was never as particularly politically-charged as climate. So it’s easy to understand why technology leadership has become core to the communications strategy of nearly every company. But we know enough to know that the impacts of climate on business are going to have “digital transformation” level shock waves in the corporate world - and in many cases already are. 

Greenhushing may seem like the safer path — but it leaves value on the table. If the work is happening, if the progress is real, then there’s an opportunity to shape perception, influence peers, and earn trust. 

Silence doesn’t guarantee companies will avoid the spotlight. But it does guarantee they’ll hand it to someone else. 

The fundamentals of business are shifting. Sustainability work solving for energy, water, circularity and other climate risk are actually solving for growth, resilience, and long-term advantage.

Why waste that?

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