Corporate sustainability commitments were always partly performative, but the specific retreat by Google and Microsoft carries a policy signal that distinguishes it from ordinary greenwashing. Both companies made their carbon-neutral pledges publicly and with enough specificity that abandoning them requires explanation — and neither company has offered one beyond pointing to growth. That silence is the signal. since their respective pledge baselines are now public benchmarks against which future sustainability claims will be measured. Regulators in the EU who have…