The introduction of the CMA Green Claims Code enforcement in 2025 has fundamentally altered the climate communication strategies of the UK’s largest listed companies. Under mounting legal risk, FTSE 100 boards that once eagerly broadcast emissions milestones are increasingly avoiding public sustainability claims. This shift, often called ‘greenhushing,’ is not due to decreased action but arises from heightened risk associated with imprecise language. For business leaders and investors, recognising and navigating this pivot is now essential for managing compliance and stakeholder expectations.
The catalyst is the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC), which gives the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) direct powers to determine when consumer protection rules have been breached and to impose fines of up to 10% of global turnover for misleading conduct. In the context of environmental marketing, those DMCC Act environmental penalties turn vague green slogans into a potential billion-pound liability. Legal departments are therefore tightening control of climate narratives, often deciding that silence is safer than a bold claim that cannot be proven across a complex supply chain.
At the same time, asset managers, regulators and civil society still expect credible, decision-useful climate data. The result is an uneasy compromise. The information continues to flow in private documents and regulatory filings, while public communications become drier, narrower and more cautious. This is the new era of greenhushing.
DMCC Act Powers That Transformed Green Claims
The starting point for the current shift is the change in enforcement architecture. Before the DMCC Act, the CMA Green Claims Code existed as influential guidance. It set clear expectations for environmental statements, but, in practice, the regulator usually had to rely on the courts to enforce consumer protection rules. That process was slow, costly and unpredictable, which limited the frequency and scale of interventions.
From 2025, the picture is very different. The DMCC Act allows the CMA to decide directly when consumer law has been breached and to impose penalties without first securing a court judgment. For misleading green claims, this means the authority can:
- Open a consumer protection investigation based on marketing, labelling or website content.
- Conclude that an environmental claim is misleading or incomplete.
- Require the company to withdraw or correct the claim and compensate affected consumers.
- Impose fines of up to 10% of global group turnover, plus daily penalties for continued non-compliance.
For a FTSE 100 group with global revenues of £10 billion, the theoretical maximum sanction therefore reaches £1 billion. Even if fines in practice sit well below that ceiling, boards must now treat environmental marketing as a major financial and reputational hazard. The consequences do not end with the CMA. Misleading claims can also feed into class actions, securities law disputes and director disqualification proceedings.
These new tools, layered on top of pre-existing consumer law, have turned the Green Claims Code from an advisory compass into a benchmark for enforceable standards, particularly where marketing is aimed at retail consumers.
How 10 Per Cent Penalties Changed Executive Risk
For corporate leaders, the key psychological shift is in the perceived balance between reward and risk. Previously, a bold sustainability campaign might have generated praise, awards and some reputational uplift, with the legal downside seen as remote. Under the DMCC regime, that calculation has been recalibrated.
In confidential conversations, City lawyers describe risk committees where sustainability communications are considered alongside competition infringements and major data breaches. A senior partner at a Magic Circle firm specialising in ESG compliance might characterise it this way: the potential upside of a “green” marketing message is marginal compared with the possibility of a regulatory investigation and a penalty that bites directly into global revenue. The effect is that legal and compliance teams now have a veto over environmental narratives, which they exercise liberally.
Claims that would previously have passed as “good storytelling” are now interrogated line by line. Questions include:
- Can the company produce robust, contemporary evidence for every factual element of the claim?
- Is the claim fair and not misleading when viewed in the context of the whole product life cycle?
- Could the wording imply a level of environmental performance that goes beyond what the data supports?
If the answer to any of these questions is uncertain, the statement is quietly dropped. This is one of the strongest drivers of FTSE 100 ESG reporting trends toward brevity and technical language, especially in consumer-facing channels.
What Greenwashing Means For UK Sustainability Communication
Greenwashing in the UK market describes a situation where companies continue to set science-based climate targets and pursue sustainability projects, yet choose not to promote those efforts publicly. It is the mirror image of greenwashing. Where greenwashing exaggerates progress, greenhushing deliberately downplays or conceals it. This is now a central axis in the debate around Greenwashing vs Greenwashing.
Climate consultancies working with large UK corporates report that around one third of major businesses have stopped publicising certain environmental, social and governance (ESG) milestones, even where those milestones remain active internally. Targets still exist, transition plans still operate, and decarbonization initiatives still proceed, but they are reported through formal channels only, such as statutory reports or confidential investor briefings.
This shift is particularly visible in the tone of communications. Public-facing content that once spoke in grand terms about “saving the planet” has given way to sparse descriptions of percentage reductions, base years and protocol references. The emotional and political dimensions of climate ambition are toned down or removed entirely.
Fun fact: The term “greenhushing” was first used in climate policy circles to describe firms that preferred to keep quiet about ambitious emissions targets, on the basis that publicising them attracted more criticism than support.
In short, greenwashing is not the absence of climate action. It is the decision to hide that action from wider audiences, largely for legal and reputational reasons.
Why Litigation And Scope 3 Data Fuel Silence
Multiple overlapping pressures, not just regulation, are driving large companies to limit public climate narratives. The choice to stay quiet—greenhushing—now reflects a broad risk calculation that encompasses litigation, public perception, and data complexity.
First, litigation risk has increased. Alongside CMA enforcement, there is a growing appetite for legal challenges framed as “climate fraud” or misrepresentation of sustainability credentials. Even if many of these actions are ultimately unsuccessful, the prospect of hostile litigation adds another layer of caution. Statements that might once have been seen as aspirational now look like potential exhibits in court.
Second, companies fear accusations of insufficiency. Announcing a “30% reduction in emissions” can attract criticism for not achieving 100%, particularly in social media debates where nuance is limited. Some communications teams report that any climate announcement now generates as much negative commentary as positive feedback, which reinforces the instinct to say nothing until the company can demonstrate near-perfect performance.
Third, and perhaps most important in regulatory terms, is the complexity of Scope 3 emissions. The CMA has signalled particular interest in claims that involve supply-chain impacts, distribution and product use. Yet Scope 3 data is inherently difficult to measure at high levels of accuracy, especially where global suppliers rely on estimates or industry averages.
Faced with that uncertainty, many boards conclude that public Scope 3 claims are more likely to create risk than to build trust. Rather than stating that a product is “carbon neutral”, they restrict themselves to describing narrow, easily verifiable aspects or remove emissions language from packaging altogether. This is seen as a rational adaptation to the CMA Green Claims Code enforcement 2025, but it also contributes to the broader dimming of publicly available climate information.
Where Greenwashing Is Most Visible In FTSE Sectors
The trend toward silence is not evenly distributed. Some sectors of the FTSE 100 face much sharper scrutiny and have therefore taken a more aggressive stance on greenwashing.
Fast Fashion And Retail
Fast fashion and high-street retail sit at the forefront of this change. The CMA’s investigations into environmental marketing in the clothing sector highlighted problems with phrases such as “eco collection” or “conscious choice”, which suggested substantial sustainability benefits without always providing detailed substantiation. In response, leading UK retailers have methodically stripped such general labels from their websites and campaigns.
Product pages that once celebrated a garment as “environmentally friendly” now often display only the material composition and care instructions. Where environmental information is provided, it tends to be highly specific, for example, the percentage of recycled fibre in a fabric, rather than broad claims about overall climate impact. The underlying goods may be no different, but the language has become clinical.
Energy And Utilities
Energy and utility companies have long been central to the “energy transition” narrative. For years, they invested heavily in marketing that emphasised renewable capacity, investment in low-carbon technologies and net zero aspirations. Under the new enforcement regime, that narrative has been pared back.
Here, another regulatory player is crucial. The Financial Conduct Authority’s Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) set detailed rules for sustainability-related claims in the financial sector. Listed energy companies that raise capital in UK markets must now ensure that any climate-related language in investor documents is tightly aligned with the data. Many have therefore rebadged or retired consumer-facing campaigns that might not withstand the same scrutiny.
FMCG And Supermarkets
Fast-moving consumer goods, particularly food and household products, face some of the toughest measurement challenges. Computing the carbon footprint of a single packaged meal, from farm to factory to transport to refrigeration, requires a chain of estimates and assumptions. Under the DMCC framework, any on-pack “carbon neutral” or “low impact” logo could be questioned if those assumptions are not transparent and scientifically robust.
In practice, this has led supermarket groups and major brands to remove or downgrade such labels. They may still track product-level emissions internally and share those figures with buyers or regulators, but the front-of-pack storytelling has become muted. Caution has replaced enthusiasm, and marketing departments are wary of attaching bold environmental badges to items whose lifecycle data could be challenged.
Across these sectors, the pattern is consistent. Companies are still investing in climate initiatives, yet the public narrative has narrowed as FTSE 100 ESG reporting trends tilt towards minimalism in high-risk areas.
How Investors Respond To Shrinking ESG Disclosure
The pivot to greenwashing does not mean that climate data has disappeared. Instead, it has migrated from public channels to more controlled settings. Institutional investors such as BlackRock and Vanguard still require detailed ESG information to evaluate long-term risk and allocate capital. They continue to ask for transition plans, emissions trajectories and governance structures.
In many cases, investors now receive more granular data than ever, but via confidential slide decks, private calls and password-protected platforms rather than public websites. A Head of Stewardship at a large London asset manager might summarise the situation succinctly: the underlying spreadsheets still arrive, yet the press releases have thinned out. That shift creates a gap between what sophisticated investors know and what the wider public can see.
This information asymmetry has several consequences. It complicates the task of smaller investors, civil society groups and employees who rely on public disclosures to assess corporate climate performance. It can also distort market signals. If only a subset of stakeholders can identify which firms are genuinely advancing, capital may not flow as efficiently towards the companies with the strongest transition strategies.
At the same time, greenwashing carries its own risks in investor relations. Limited public disclosure can raise suspicions that a company is hiding poor performance. Some asset managers now treat silence as a potential red flag, prompting more intensive engagement behind closed doors. Boards, therefore, face a delicate balance between controlling legal risk and maintaining credibility with capital providers.
Towards Precise UK Corporate Sustainability Compliance
Looking ahead, many practitioners see the current surge in greenwashing as a transitional phase rather than a permanent settlement. In the early years of the DMCC regime, companies are understandably cautious while case law develops and the CMA’s enforcement priorities become clearer. Over time, precedent should help define what counts as a sufficiently substantiated claim and where the boundaries of acceptable aspirational language sit.
The likely destination is not a return to vague, feel-good climate marketing, but a more technical, evidence-led style of communication. Public sustainability narratives will need to be built on the same foundations as financial reporting: clearly defined metrics, explicit assumptions, independent assurance where appropriate and a robust internal audit trail.
For UK boards, this means treating UK corporate sustainability compliance as a strategic discipline rather than an add-on. Practical steps include aligning marketing with legal sign-off, strengthening data collection across supply chains, investing in lifecycle analysis and ensuring that targets are realistic, costed and integrated into overall corporate strategy. In this environment, the most effective messages will be precise, modest and grounded in verifiable progress.
In that sense, the end of greenwashing is also the end of carefree climate storytelling. The FTSE 100 is moving towards a disclosure culture in which every environmental word must earn its place. For consumers and the planet, the immediate effect may feel like a loss of visibility. Yet if greenwashing gradually gives way to carefully evidenced transparency, the result could be a more honest conversation about what a credible transition actually looks like. The companies that master this forensic precision will not just survive the enforcement era; they will help set the standard by which others are judged.
