A wave of coverage suggested that the US president was giving cover to companies to end their green pledges. And several headlines suggested that others were keeping their climate polices on the down-low to avoid the president’s wrath.

The latter trend has been dubbed “greenhushing” – deliberately downplaying climate pledges. But experts and researchers working in the field say the full picture is much more complicated, and pre-dates last year’s US presidential election.

In fact, the idea of greenhushing first got widespread popular attention back in 2022, when Switzerland-based climate consultancy South Pole identified it as a trend in their annual report, finding that a quarter of the companies they surveyed set “science-based emission reduction targets” – but did not plan to publicly talk about them.

It’s been a running theme since then. In early 2024 – a full year before Trump took office – South Pole found that nearly half of companies were struggling to communicate their climate pledges, due to new regulations, compliance schemes and lack of confidence.

South Pole’s most recent report, released earlier this year and focused on financial institutions, notes that general risk statements have supplanted more detailed climate risk plans. But tricky regulation – not pro-oil drilling policies – might be to blame. Companies, the consultancy says, “navigate a complex landscape where they can be sued for saying too little – and sued for saying too much.”