What’s changed about communicating sustainability in 2025?

The language around sustainability is changing, as businesses have been removing sustainability language from websites, reports, and investor communications.

Examples abound. A Conference Board survey found that fewer companies are using the phrase “ESG” in their reports—40% of S&P 100 companies used the language in sustainability report titles in 2023, but that number dropped to 6% by late April 2025, by which time about half the companies had already reported. But while “ESG” is being deleted, it’s now being recast more generally as “sustainability” and “impact” to focus more on business value, according to the Conference Board. The We Mean Business Coalition showed that just reframing climate risk as business risk increases people’s positive perception.

According to the Financial Times, Walmart and Kraft Heinz each deleted or rewrote sustainability language from March 2024 to March 2025. Coca-Cola backed away from emissions reduction commitments last December, and tempered wording on its website to match. Meta deleted text about “leading the way on climate change” that was on its sustainability web page last summer. Also last summer, Ford removed sustainability language from a prominent position on its UK sustainability web page, though it kept mentions lower down.

Doing good still matters. According to a 2024 survey from the Potential Energy Coalition (PEC), more than 70% of US customers expected companies to go beyond serving shareholders, and said companies have a responsibility to limit their environmental impact. Investors felt similarly, favoring companies with pro-climate positions. In fact, 60% of US investors agreed that climate change is a material risk for companies that can affect their financial performance, according to the We Mean Business Coalition.

“Our data suggests that people have changed less than you think they have in the last year,” Will Howard, head of insights and advisory services at the Potential Energy Coalition, told CFO Brew.

And the underlying programs, initiatives, and goals appear to be remaining the same, according to a late September HBR article , according to a September article from the Harvard Business Review: “Although a fraction of companies have pulled back, many more are staying the course, or even doubling down. They’re just doing it quietly.”

Materiality over morality. Just the words “climate change” have become politically charged and polarized. Four out of five US consumers feel like “too many people are trying to impose their beliefs on others,” according to the Potential Energy Coalition survey. One survey respondent was even quoted as saying, “Companies have been very in your face with a particular agenda lately—whether you agree or disagree.”

Howard explained that companies describe climate initiatives in moral language: “right and wrong, good for the world, bad for the world, and that values-laden language has caused some of the pushback.”

PEC’s research suggests that a moral message emphasizing words like “social injustice” and “natural capital,” mixed with combat verbs like “fight” and “impact,” triggered backlash. Conversely, messaging that focuses on tangible actions and financial results faces less consumer resistance to climate efforts.

CFOs, Howard advised, should focus on communicating the actual work they’re doing instead of “language that makes this an issue of morality, right and wrong.”

“My advice is generally, I think the age of performative ESG/DEI is over,” Howard said. “Just sticking those words on the website is going to get you in trouble with people who don’t like those terms, and just sticking those terms on the website is going to get you in trouble with people who do, if you aren’t backing them up in any way.”

Use plain language. Even though the term ESG has become fraught, most consumers don’t know what the letters actually stand for. Some of the guesses in PEC’s report? Excellent Service Goal; eggs, sausage, grits; and Established Social Government.

The survey recommends moving to the phrase “responsible business,” since it’s “clearer, less politicized, and more personally resonant across political parties.” It encompasses the same ideas as ESG, but uses more familiar and less politically polarizing language.

Even shifting from “protecting biodiversity” to “protecting plants, animals, and their habitats” dramatically increased favorability scores.

“Audiences are going to be more satisfied if you have a much simpler story of what you’ve actually done…and if you can be specific,” Howard said.

But what do we lose? Having a common language to talk about risk, opportunities, and challenges is important for CFOs so they can clearly communicate the state of the business. So when companies start obscuring words, the connections between climate and financial impacts can become muddled, according to Ilmi Granoff, a senior fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, managing member of Climate Technology Group, and the executive chair at Carbon Tracker.

“There is value in having a common technical language,” he said.

Imagine trying to articulate the financial condition of your company without Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Granoff thinks it’s a problem if “companies can’t speak plainly to their investors.”

So while companies might be avoiding triggering consumers and investors with “softer” language, they’re creating “a significant loss of fidelity,” according to Granoff.

Howard agreed that “based on our testing, some specific words and phrases and the language have become more charged than the actual actions.”

“It used to be a joke that talking about the weather was the most boring thing that you can talk about,” he said. “Now just observing that the weather is impacting your business gets you in risk of getting in trouble, which is ridiculous.”