Greenhushing: the deliberate under communicating of sustainability practices by tourism businesses

Greenhushing selectively communicates fewer pro-sustainability actions by businesses than are practiced; based on a perception of customers’ rights to consumerism. We first studied the gap between the communication of sustainability practices in the audits and websites of 31 small rural tourism businesses in the Peak District National Park (UK). The analysis showed that businesses only communicate 30% of all the sustainability actions practiced. Their websites emphasised customer benefits, using explicit, affective, experiential and active language that legitimises the customers’ hedonistic use of the landscape, while downplaying complex issues and normalising sustainability to reduce customer guilt. Just one website mentioned climate change. We found that greenhushing results from a low moral intensity, masking potentially negative consequences of perceived lower competence, whilst protecting business from more cynical consumers who may interpret their statements as hypocritical. Subsequent textual analysis and interviews were used to understand how communication constitutes these organisations. We propose that greenhushing reshapes and constitutes tourism businesses through their communications. Moreover, greenhushing is a form of public moralisation that adopts communication practices similar to greenwashing, reflecting the social norms expected from a business; however, in this case, located in a moral muteness, rather than moral hypocrisy, that businesses accept but resent

Sustainable Luxury Marketing : A synthesis and research agenda

Sustainability has become a pervasive issue for the luxury sector, gaining traction with brand managers, scholars, policy-makers, the media, and academia. The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of sustainable luxury research in marketing and consumer behaviour by critically reviewing and synthesizing the growing but fragmented body of scholarly work on sustainable-luxury marketing. The paper critically assesses where, how and by whom research on sustainable luxury is being conducted, and it identifies gaps for future investigation. The paper reviews research published between 2007 and 2018 within major peer-reviewed English-language scholarly publications in business, marketing, ethics, fashion, food and tourism journals. The research is identified using the keywords sustainable luxury, green luxury, eco-luxury and organic luxury. Three core themes emerge from this review: (1) consumer concerns and practices; (2) organizational concerns and practices; and (3) international and cross-cultural issues. The review confirms that research on sustainable luxury is significantly underdeveloped. This paper provides the first critical and comprehensive assessment and categorization of the emergent literature streams on sustainable luxury. The authors argue for a broader, deeper and more critical research agenda on the relationship between sustainability and luxury. Potential avenues for future research on sustainable luxury are proposed, with calls for theoretical and cross-cultural reflections that tackle broader systemic and institutional issues within the field