In 2024, a record 21 % of all new cars in Europe were fully battery-electric or plug-ins, with more than a 50 % share in several markets and even higher market shares for small trucks in some markets. This is true also in other places of the world, including surprising EV leaders like Jordan. While the growing EV market obviously comes with sustainability challenges, including how vehicles get bigger and heavier, this has tremendous positive implications for the climate and environment and is a key reason that the EU may reach its “Fit for 55” climate target for 2030.
A key reason why EV sales are picking up is that they are seen as an attractive way to reduce your own climate impact. This influences private consumers, companies choosing their fleet and policy makers choosing which potential emissions reductions to incentivize, monetarily or in other ways. And why do we see EVs as an attractive part of the solution? Not only because they really are, but also to a large degree because they are portrayed as such – marketing matters. That is why the jury for the world’s first Greenhush Award – the world’s most silent award – took the nomination of the car industry very seriously. The Greenhush Award, initiated in Sweden but increasingly of global relevance, highlights climate and environment benefits that should be marketed but is instead hushed and downplayed – and if this is happening with the electric cars, it may transform into reduced EV sales and increased emissions.
The Kantar Sustainable Behavior Action Tracker shows that the automobile industry has been leading in marketing sustainability, with 30% of ads tackling and showcasing the topic of sustainable transport choices. No other industry even breaks 10%. But the nomination of the car industry says that this is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The (real or perceived) risk of breaking increasingly stringent legislation to ensure that green claims are substantiated, welcome but also scary Greenwash-awards and the general feeling that climate benefits are “woke” all contribute, and marketing companies report that their suggestions for highlighting sustainability benefits increasingly get nixed by the vehicle manufacturer – often at the legal level.
Kantar’s latest quarterly report has just one example on marketing focusing on sustainability, which is the recent launch of the Hyundai Inster, a small EV marketed with “implicit encouragement of a sustainable, fun, healthy lifestyle”. This echoes our concern – that instead of explicitly mentioning the sustainability benefits of choosing an EV, makers are going for an understated understanding which may mean that it goes unnoticed by many. Such implicit marketing – “if you know it, you know it” – may exclude consumers with lower levels of insights – precisely the newcomers to the EV market that need to be informed. It may also prove to be insufficient if sustainability claims against EVs are explicit, extensive and seemingly backed by numbers and facts.
The Greenhush Award jury thus systematically scrutinized this. We chose the ten best selling electric cars in Europe during the first six months of 2025, and went through the main official site for each of them. We checked to what extent it mentions climate, environment, emissions and Co2 (or the direct equivalent if the site was in another language, in this case Swedish since the search was performed in Sweden). We also counted the words on each site to better understand the ratio of sustainability claims within the overall marketing.
The results are disappointing. Even though most of the sites have well over 1 000 words, the different sustainability benefits are hardly highlighted at all. What at first may look like environmental information, at a closer look is not – both Tesla and Volkswagen mention “climate” but it is about the in-car climate control. “Co2” is only mentioned by Volkswagen, and only in the fine print. “Environment” is mainly used about the driving environment, except for two examples of other sources highlighting environmental benefits which the carmaker then refers to. For “emissions”, Volkswagen mentions “Zero emissions while driving” for one of its three top-ten models, but not for the others, no other brand mentions emissions at all.
Advertisements typically contain less information than model-specific websites, so one would not expect to find high levels of sustainability information here. It was still disappointed that hardly any of the advertisements for electric vehicles (pure and plug-in) had any information at all beyond the legal requirements of consumption and Co2 figures, shown in small print. This was true both for the leading car magazines Autocar and Top Gear (in English) and for the vehicle section of main daily newspapers across Europe. When checking with the equivalent for other markets, the results did not change – partially because most advertisements are produced centrally.
Taking all of this into account, and having concurrently conducted research on the other finalists, the jury has now decided that the Greenhush Award 2025 goes to the Strange New Climate Silence in EV Marketing, with the following reasoning:
“Transport accounts for a third of global climate emissions. Switching to electric vehicles (EVs) is essential to meet climate goals—despite new sustainability challenges. Thanks to bold marketing, EV adoption has surged. But now, just when the climate case for electric driving should be loud and clear, the industry is going quiet.
Across the EU and globally, we’re seeing a troubling trend: carmakers and importers downplaying the climate benefits of EVs. This silence plays straight into the hands of the fossil fuel lobby. Yes, claims must follow the law—but there’s still plenty of room to communicate the environmental upside of going electric.
The EV industry has come a long way. Once accused of greenwashing, it’s now driving real change. But now it should be leading with climate messaging, it’s choosing silence. That’s why the EV sector earns the Greenhush Award 2025—for staying quiet when the planet needs it to speak up.”
The award is presented during the COP30 climate summit. Last year, when the award was given to Teams, Zoom and Meet for failing to mention the climate benefits of online meetings, the winners did not show up, but the first year’s winner public transport graciously accepted the inaugural Greenush Award for large climate benefits that remain untold. It remains to be seen whether this year’s award will remain uncollected – after all it is both praise and criticism rolled into one. But more importantly, hopefully the Award can stem the negative trend of hushing the climate benefits of driving electric.
Mattias Goldmann
