If you're a big enough business perhaps you can never afford to crow about your environmental credentials.

The more you try to capitalise on the legitimate efforts you make to reduce your impacts (as opposed to greenwashing, which is always a mug's game), the more attention you attract from journalists and campaigners eager to reveal your shortcomings.

A buyer at one of the DIY chains told me years ago that they had (presumably still have) a group which is working patiently through thousands of product lines trying to reduce their footprints and toxicity. She said there was no way they would ever seek publicity for it because it was a very long programme and the minute they tried to capitalise on it they would be fair game for anyone to trawl their shelves for the product with the highest VOCs.

Unilever has a prominent sustainability section on its website where it talks about its efforts to encourage supply chain improvements and sustainable sourcing, but it would be difficult for it to promote itself as the green brands corporation when Greenpeace is targeting it for its association with the clearance of Indonesian rainforest to produce palm oil for its soap and biscuit shortening.

It's probably best to continue hiding your light under a bushel, no matter how much hard work you are putting in if you can see the risks that come with trumpeting your virtues.  Eventually you may reap the rewards anyway. Three of Unilever's brands (Persil, PG Tips and Surf) were in the top 10 in the heavily-publicised Green Index compiled recently by consultants EnvirUP and the University of Nottingham, which measured the sustainability of the UK's 100 best selling consumer product.

Sometimes you just have to anchor in hope.