The Feed
Sustainability leaders are talking about their work less, not more. Caught between greenwashing rules and activist scrutiny, the safest-looking move has become silence. Here is what that costs, and how to take the words back.
Vocabulary is the foundation of understanding. It is also a primary ingredient for critical thought and human connection. When restriction dominates its usage, our ability to leverage it diminishes. Momentum slows. Progress itself is throttled. And power is handed to those who want to control the narrative on our behalf.
This is the case for a new relationship between accuracy and restriction.
Sustainability, impact, and purpose leaders are increasingly picking up a new reflex. Before a word leaves our mouths, we check it. Is it safe? Does it draw fire?
That reflex is expensive. It is also slow.
Language policing did not come from nowhere. We were talked into it, one reasonable-sounding correction at a time.
For years, "sustainable," "eco-friendly," "green," and "carbon neutral" got slapped on anything that needed a halo. A flight. A bank account. Cheese. Much of this was a smokescreen. And it required a response.
When the EU's Empowering Consumers Directive lands in September 2026, banning generic green claims and "carbon neutral" labels with fines of up to 4% of turnover, we can see a very public acknowledgement of this very real problem.
But close to this necessity sits a trap. The case for precision is so obvious that it can, if left unchecked, smuggle in something more sinister. That something is silence. There is a world of difference between being accurate and being quiet, and if we are not careful, the push for the former could result in the latter.
There is a world of difference between being accurate and being quiet.
Across US federal agencies, staff have been coached to drop words like "climate change," "emissions," "green," and "sustainable" from their work. The most famous is the USDA, which swapped "climate change" for "weather extremes" back in 2017. But there are many other examples of this as well. PEN America now counts more than 350 flagged words. Even "safe drinking water" appears to be problematic. These restrictions do not help anyone to win an argument. They either make the argument impossible or restrict who can participate. They create silence in place of discourse.
But this is not just a top-down phenomenon. Within activism and general parlance, words can turn over fast, with regular pressure to shift between acceptable terms based on an ever-changing ruleset established with minimal legitimacy or debate.
It's "climate crisis," not "climate change." No, "emergency." "Net zero" is a dodge; say "real zero." Each correction is defensible alone, but stacked together, they build a booby-trapped vocabulary that alienates the uninitiated. This inspires disengagement, not advocacy, and is the exact opposite of what impact leaders at large brands need to do.
Whether it is sustainability, politics, or social justice, the same phenomenon exists. Last year Third Way published a memo, "Was It Something I Said?", urging its own side to drop forty-odd terms, because language previously selected to include was now sounding superior, and the people it was meant to reach were increasingly alienated. This is an interesting and common response. But remedying the consequence of heavily regulated vocabulary with yet more regulation risks compounding the problem. We need to get back to being human and inclusive. We need to reclaim language so it can fulfill its potential and help reach and inspire the broad audiences whose participation we need. In short. Brands need to focus more on what they are saying and less on adhering to a prescribed list of words they are allowed to use.
Brands need to focus more on what they are saying and less on adhering to a prescribed list of words.
Regulators and the activists agree on almost nothing. Yet both heavily police the language we use. Every rule and correction (even if justified) literally takes the words out of our mouths. And whilst we need to preserve accuracy and truth, communication without adequate vocabulary is pointless and ineffective.
There is a word for what comes next. Greenhushing. As the Wall Street Journal reported, companies have not abandoned sustainability; they are just talking about it less. Mentions of sustainability and related terms on earnings calls reportedly fell 31% in a single year. This is not a collapse in action but a collapse in the telling. But for consumers, the two could look identical. In truth, audiences are not asking brands to say less; they are asking for understandable language and substantiated claims before they can trust what brands say.
Say too much, and the lobbyists and skeptics are waiting to criticize. Say it imperfectly, and you risk public correction, eroding your credibility. Say nothing, and you relinquish the hard-earned trust your audiences demand.
Silence is the most expensive option, not the safe one. Precision and the courage to speak were never opposites. Accuracy is a reason to think about word usage more carefully, not to abandon words altogether. The way through this is to give our audiences what they are asking for: speak like a human, in plain, concrete language, with credible proof next to each claim.
Silence is the most expensive option, not the safe one.
An existing OEM client of ours recently asked for a POV on the use of the phrase "nature positive" and the associated connotations and risks. The term is fraught with misrepresentation, and the easy instinct would have been to remove it from the table. Instead, we recommended reestablishing its true meaning. The phrase is the biodiversity twin of net zero and aims to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 relative to a 2020 baseline. But almost no one hears that definition. They hear the adjective, and "positive" means whatever the reader wants it to mean. Our recommendation: earn the term by showing action and impact against its goals, rather than abandoning it altogether.
The choice that actually matters is not a fixation between approved words and rejected ones. It is speaking up for substance and against overzealous restriction. Stay quiet, and you may buy some calm. But at what cost? Speak with clarity and proof, and you give yourself and every other impact leader cover to do the same. That is how we get our voice back.
So if you feel that restriction is stifling your impact story, come and talk to us.
And let's find your voice together.
Paul Newton is an EVP and leads integrated strategy for both HOWL and Antenna Group, delivering on the agency's mission to promote sustainability, purpose, and impact. In his role, he manages a diverse team of creatives, technologists, and project managers to deliver innovative brand and campaign solutions that help clients inspire positive environmental or societal impact, and reach their commercial potential. He also leads the agency's innovation and IP and is the architect of the Conscious Compass, a 360 brand diagnostic.
