By Clara Hudson and Jon Leckie

American Airlines highlighted its focus on "ambitious climate goals" in a report last year.

In a similar filing a few weeks ago, that phrase was gone.

The airline is among a wave of companies across industries tweaking -- sometimes overhauling -- what they say about their sustainability and climate efforts in proxy statements, an investor filing released every year ahead of a business's annual shareholder meeting.

The language shifts follow an about-face in Washington as the Trump administration unwinds a slate of environmental policies, including a Securities and Exchange Commission effort to mandate corporate disclosure of climate-related risks and greenhouse-gas emissions.

Companies from grocery chain Kroger to retailer American Eagle Outfitters have lopped certain sections or phrases on their climate efforts in their proxy statements in recent weeks. In its report last year -- but not this year -- Kroger said it was "committed to reducing the impact of our business on the climate and assessing the potential future risk of a changing climate to our business operations."

Last year, Kroger also said that holding its meeting virtually "reduces our costs and in a small way the carbon footprint of our activities." That reference to a lower footprint didn't appear on this year's meeting, also held online.

Asked about the difference, Kroger said it makes an effort to streamline its proxy statement every year, in part by linking to its environmental, social and governance report that has more detail on its emissions and climate efforts.

"We have not changed our approach to climate and remain focused on achieving our 2030 goals to create a cleaner, healthier planet," a Kroger spokesperson said this week.

The same goes for American Eagle Outfitters, which in its 2024 proxy statement said it "continues to work to reduce Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions $(GHG)$ and reduce Scope 3 GHG emissions from purchased goods, services and capital goods." There is no mention of emissions in the 2025 report it released in mid-May.

"We periodically adjust the copy used in the company's external messaging and communications," a spokesperson for American Eagle Outfitters said by way of explanation. "AEO's commitment to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions remains unchanged. "

And it isn't just in proxy statements. Cosmetics brand e.l.f. Beauty had a section on the planet in its annual investor report last year, known as a 10-K filing, that was about twice as long as the same section in late May.

E.l.f. declined to comment for this article. American Airlines didn't respond to a request for comment.

Data compiled by The Wall Street Journal shows the number of proxy statements containing the term "net-zero" plummeted 32% year-to-date compared with the same period in 2024, while mentions of "carbon-neutral" fell 30%. The number of documents that mentioned Scope 1, 2 or 3 emissions -- an amount that had been steadily rising since 2022 -- dropped 24%.

Proxy-statement data were pulled from Factiva, a product of Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Searches included a total of more than 10,000 documents for the first five months of each year since 2022. Terms were counted only when they appeared in the context of statements regarding emissions or greenhouse gases.

Another reason for the decline in climate-related terms might be the dive in activist-shareholder proposals pressing companies to do better on their environmental goals. A report from proxy-advisory service ISS from late May counted 229 environmental and social proposals in proxy statements this year, raising everything from emissions worries to human-rights abuses. That was down from 417 last year.

Mentions of the environment haven't entirely disappeared from investor filings: American Airlines and Kroger highlight their sustainability or ESG strategies, for example. American Eagle Outfitters' filing points to efforts to conserve water when making jeans. And e.l.f.'s report says "climate change stands as one of the most pressing issues of our time, and we are committed to reducing our carbon footprint across our entire business."

Politics aside, companies risk lawsuits or reputational repercussions if what they say in their investor filings is overly rosy, noted David Larcker, a business professor at Stanford University.

"I think it's important to point out that this is an SEC document, the board members sign off on these things," Larcker said. "It's an SEC violation if it's not truthful, and that's not pretty."

Though the new political landscape has no doubt muted the language on climate, he said, it's also possible institutional investors and analysts are pressing companies less on corporate climate goals. "It's kind of a sign of the times," he added.

Sustainability executives themselves -- a whopping 80% of those asked in a recent Conference Board survey -- say their companies are "adjusting" the way they talk about climate. The most common changes were simply reframing the messaging, for instance, moving away from the term "environmental, social and governance," the report said. Half the executives surveyed said they worried that talking about net-zero goals or climate targets could spark a backlash.

The risks and opportunities of the climate transition haven't changed -- if anything they have become more immediate, said Witold Henisz, vice dean and faculty director of the Wharton School's ESG initiative at the University of Pennsylvania. Determining which companies are leaders and which are laggards on climate will be more difficult for investors and other stakeholders if they are getting less information, he said.

While some companies might stop overpromising on their climate efforts, Henisz said, climate-related disclosure is necessary for investors to weigh the impact on everything from mergers to spinoffs and IPOs.

"We can't assess businesses if they're not telling us this information that is vital," he said.

Write to Clara Hudson at clara.hudson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 05, 2025 12:00 ET (16:00 GMT)

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