Louder than claims, quieter than truth: India’s greenwashing-greenhushing dilemma

In India’s rapidly evolving green economy, sustainability is no longer a fringe narrative—it's headline news.

- PANKAJ CHHUTTANI

But beneath the buzz, companies are increasingly walking a tightrope between greenwashing and greenhushing. The former involves loud but misleading environmental claims; the latter is a cautious silence about real but under-communicated sustainability efforts. Both distort the public conversation, and India’s legal and regulatory framework is now scrambling to keep up.

Greenwashing is the practice of making exaggerated or false environmental claims—think “eco-friendly” packaging or “carbon neutral” pledges—without credible backing. To tackle this, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) formally issued the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Greenwashing or Misleading Environmental Claims, 2024. These guidelines prohibit vague buzzwords like “sustainable,” “green,” or “eco-friendly” if they are not transparently substantiated. They also mandate third-party verification for claims such as “compostable” or “climate-positive” and require advertisers to lay out their data, methodology, and timelines in a consumer-accessible way.

Alongside CCPA regulation, self-regulatory norms have also been strengthened. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has issued its