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You Can Now Check Whether AI Assistants are Actually Citing Your Sustainability Claims
Back in June I wrote about what happens when someone asks an AI assistant whether your company is any good on sustainability. It doesn't hand over your neatly worded page. It reads what it can find, breaks your claim into parts, and rebuilds an answer from whatever survives. Specific, evidenced claims tend to make it through that process. Vague ones get hollowed out. At the time, that was an argument, not a measurement. I could tell you the mechanism. I couldn't tell you whic
Lee Green
2 days ago3 min read


The Trust Gap: Why Consumers Don't Believe Sustainability Claims Anymore
Nearly half of consumers no longer believe the sustainability claims they read, and new research shows scepticism causes disengagement rather than scrutiny. Here's what that means for how you communicate, and what actually rebuilds trust.
Lee Green
Jul 258 min read


The EU Just Agreed How It Will Enforce the Green Claims Ban. "Dialogue First" Isn't a Free Pass.
On 30 June 2026 the EU's consumer regulators agreed a common approach to enforcing the green claims ban from 27 September, favouring dialogue over sanctions. Here's why that isn't the reprieve it sounds like, and what SMEs selling into the EU should do now.
Lee Green
Jul 119 min read


Can AI Help You Avoid Greenwashing, or Just Do It Faster?
Generative AI's default register is confident, generic and evidence-free. That's exactly the language regulators are banning, and their AI is reading your ads. Here's how to use AI to test claims instead of generating them.
Lee Green
Jul 47 min read


Scope 3: The Emissions You're Responsible for Communicating, Even If You Can't Count Them Yet
Scope 3 emissions are the largest and least certain part of most businesses' footprint, and SMEs are now being asked to talk about them through supply chain pressure. Here's what you can honestly say about Scope 3, and what to avoid claiming.
Lee Green
Jun 298 min read


The EU Just Put a Date on Generic Green Claims. It's 27 September 2026.
On 27 September 2026 the EU's ECGT Directive bans generic environmental claims and offset-based carbon neutral product claims across all 27 member states. If you sell to EU consumers, including from the UK, here's what changes and what to do in the time you have left.
Lee Green
Jun 2410 min read


What Credible Sustainability Claims Actually Look Like: Three Examples That Hold Up
Most sustainability advice tells you what not to say. Here are three real examples of credible sustainability claims, from Patagonia, Tony's Chocolonely and Finisterre, and a breakdown of why each one stands up to scrutiny.
Lee Green
Jun 178 min read


Your Sustainability Claim Now Gets Rebuilt by a Machine Before Anyone Reads It
For most of the last two years, the conversation about AI and content has been about generation. Can it write the post, draft the report, fill the page; but that was always the less interesting half. The half that matters now is what happens on the way in, not the way out. When someone asks an AI assistant whether your company is any good on sustainability, it doesn't hand them your carefully worded statement. It reads what it can find about you, breaks it into parts, decides
Lee Green
Jun 63 min read


Greenshouting Isn't About Being Louder. That's the Part Most People Will Miss.
A few weeks ago I wrote about greenhushing. The quiet retreat. Companies that had plenty to say about sustainability four or five years ago, now saying nothing, because nothing feels safer than being accused of greenwashing. There's now a name for the opposite move. Greenshouting. Credit to Creatives for Climate and B Lab for putting it together. The guide is more careful than the word suggests. It's built around accuracy, present-tense evidence, and showing the working. Pata
Lee Green
Jun 22 min read


Sounding Certain About Sustainability is Becoming a Credibility Risk
Over the past year or two, a significant number of companies have revised, narrowed, or quietly walked back the net zero commitments they made four or five years ago. The instinct is to treat this as a failure of ambition or execution. In many cases, it's a failure of communication.
Lee Green
May 274 min read


Green Claims Compliance 2026: Why Enforcement Risk Is Higher, Not Lower
Many UK businesses breathed a sigh of relief when the EU scrapped its Green Claims Directive in June 2025. That relief was premature. Green claims compliance in 2026 is more demanding — with the ECGT enforcing from 27 September 2026 and CMA direct fining powers already live.
Lee Green
May 199 min read


'Carbon Neutral' is Now One of the Riskiest Phrases in Your Marketing — Here's Why
Product-level 'carbon neutral' claims based on offsetting are banned in the EU from September 2026, and the ASA has been ruling against them in the UK for two years. If this phrase appears on your packaging or advertising, here's what you need to do.
Lee Green
May 126 min read


Why Audiences are Starting to Question Sustainability Claims More Closely
There’s been a noticeable shift in how sustainability messaging is being received. Not all at once, and not everywhere, but gradually, across different audiences, the level of scrutiny is increasing. Statements that might have been accepted a few years ago are now being looked at more closely. Claims are being questioned. Language is being picked apart. And in some cases, challenged publicly. This isn’t just coming from one direction. Regulators are paying more attention. NGO
Lee Green
May 83 min read


Your Supplier Called It Sustainable. The CMA Says That's Now Your Problem.
The CMA published new guidance in January 2026 making clear that UK businesses can be held liable for green claims made by their suppliers. Here's what changed and what you need to do.
Lee Green
May 211 min read


The CMA's New Supply Chain Green Claims Guidance: What UK SMEs Need to Know
The CMA published new supply chain green claims guidance in January 2026. Here is what it means for UK SMEs, what has changed on liability, and the six practical steps you need to take now.
Lee Green
Apr 2710 min read


Navigating Sustainability Claims After Earth Day: What You Need to Know
Earth Day brings a surge of green content. Pledges, commitments, and sustainability highlights flood our feeds. Brands of all sizes take this moment to showcase their stance on environmental issues. But what happens after April 23rd? Most brands move on, but the posts remain. Every sustainability claim made during this time is still live, indexed, and linked to your brand. In a regulatory environment that is tightening faster than many communications teams realise, this is mo
Lee Green
Apr 243 min read


Why Sustainability Communications Often Lose Clarity (and How to Fix it)
Sustainability is inherently complex. That’s not new, and it’s not going to change. You’re dealing with multiple topics, evolving standards, technical detail, and a constant stream of new expectations. It’s a lot to hold together. The problem is that this complexity often carries straight through into how companies communicate. You see it in long explanations, dense language, and messages that try to do too much at once. The intention is usually sound — to be accurate, comple
Lee Green
Apr 202 min read


Why Sustainability Messages Break Down Inside Organisations
Most sustainability communications are built with external audiences in mind. Investors, customers, regulators, NGOs. A lot of effort goes into getting those messages right, from tone and positioning to the level of detail included. But there’s a quieter issue that often sits in the background, and it tends to get far less attention than it should. Whether the organisation itself is actually aligned on what’s being said. Even the most carefully written sustainability message
Lee Green
Apr 133 min read


Greenhushing: Why Going Quiet on Sustainability is Riskier Than Speaking Up
A third of UK businesses are deliberately communicating less about their sustainability efforts, scared of being accused of greenwashing. The problem: silence has its own set of risks. Here’s what greenhushing actually costs, and what to do instead.
Lee Green
Apr 99 min read


When Too Many Stakeholders Dilute Sustainability Messaging
Sustainability communications rarely suffer from a lack of input. If anything, the opposite is true. By the time a piece of content is ready to go out, it has often passed through multiple teams. Sustainability, legal, compliance, communications, leadership. Each one brings a different lens, a different concern, and a different threshold for risk. Individually, that makes complete sense. Collectively, though, it can create a very specific kind of problem: the message starts t
Lee Green
Mar 303 min read
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