Companies Pivot From Climate Talk to ‘Greenhushing’ in Trump Era

As the chief executive officer of Caelux, Scott Graybeal runs a technology startup in Baldwin Park, California, that makes high-efficiency glass for solar panels. For years, climate change had been a crucial part of Graybeal’s business conversations — until Donald Trump was re-elected last November.

“We have very quickly shifted gears to the other type of conversations,” Graybeal says. By that, he means to downplay his company’s role in producing carbon-free electricity and instead, highlight its contributions outside sustainability, such as domestic job creation, onshore manufacturing and energy independence — all of which resonate with the new administration’s priorities.

“It is not ...