People’s growing interest in more environmentally friendly fashion has led to an increase in so-called greenwashing in recent years. Companies exaggerate their environmental credentials by offering vague or misleading information about the products they sell. But what can be done to combat such a widespread and complex phenomenon?
This very issue was discussed at the OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector, held in Paris on 16-17 February. Central topics were above all the regulation, standardization and communication of complex sustainability knowledge.
“We have to get over [Nachhaltigkeits-]Think about claims in a very broad sense,” said Kristin Komives, program director at ISEAL, a UK-based non-profit organization that advocates for the credibility of market-based action on sustainability.
“Claims can be words, they can be images, they can be circulated,” she said, adding that these claims can relate to products, as well as supply chain investments, or sustainability commitments. In short, claims of sustainability are ubiquitous, and so is greenwashing.
Regulators are cracking down on greenwashing
To combat ambiguity about what companies mean when they refer to a product as ‘sustainable’ – or some other variant of the words ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘green’ or ‘ecological’ – various international consumer protection agencies have started to challenge unfounded to deal with allegations.
“Everyone knows the principle: One should not lie. And in marketing law, the same applies,” said Tonje Drevland, head of the Norwegian Consumer Protection Agency (NCA) oversight department, referring to the Marketing Code of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
Last year, the NCA warned Norwegian clothing company Norrøna and Swedish giant H&M for “misleading environmental claims”. The British competition authority CMA is also currently investigating fashion retailers Boohoo, Asos and Asda over similar ‘green’ claims and has recommended that the government make changes to consumer protection legislation.
Jeremy Lardeau from the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) stressed the importance of stricter legislation. He said you cannot “rely on the goodwill of a few companies to completely change their business models” because “you can see new players in other countries entering the ultra-fast fashion space at lightning speed penetration.”
“I think we need to tackle the problem at a higher level than corporate responsibility, because that’s just not enough,” he said. “I think the problem needs to be addressed at the political level.”
Consumers need more precise information
The participants in the talk also pointed out that consumers must be offered clear information that they can easily understand. “When you say ‘more sustainable denim,’ what does that mean?” asked Drevland. “As a consumer, can I make an informed decision based on that statement? I would say very clearly no. Does that relate to labor rights? Does it relate the environmental aspects of denim production? That cannot be determined from this information.”
There will be increasing pressure on brands to back up their sustainability claims with documentation. If they don’t, they face serious problems. Legal proceedings are also possible, especially if it turns out that the allegations are not just vague, but false. Drevland warned that the entire industry must “be prepared” for such a crackdown, noting that the EU and other countries are enacting tougher laws to help consumer protection agencies fight greenwashing.
Material is not everything when it comes to sustainability
But in the meantime, while new laws are being created, what can be done to combat greenwashing? Drevland stressed that one of the biggest problems in the apparel and footwear sector is that brands only focus on what material a product is made of when describing their sustainability efforts. She noted that “it’s hard to figure out what the choice of materials means throughout a product’s lifecycle,” adding that nobody knows, not even experts in the field. How should consumers then make informed decisions?
The Sustainable Apparel Coalition is looking for answers
The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) is an organization that seeks to provide a more comprehensive answer to the question of whether or not a product or organization is sustainable. In 2011 the Higg Index was launched, a set of tools to measure the sustainability of materials, but also the social and environmental impact of products in areas such as water use, carbon emissions and labor conditions.
Lardeau, the vice president of the Higg Index, said that prior to the index’s inception, “companies were operating in silos, creating their own frameworks for measuring and evaluating sustainability, leading to redundancy and audit fatigue throughout the supply chain.” The Index offers a “new and revolutionary” way for companies to “collaborate on the rules and then compete under those rules.”
But that’s no easy task, as the coalition found last year when its product-related tool, the Higg Materials Sustainability Index (Higg MSI), was banned by Norway’s NCA. Consumer advocates regarded his data as an insufficient basis for marketing statements regarding sustainability. The SAC has since released updates to its Higg Index. Lardeau noted that the Consumer Protection Agency’s investigation was “a tremendous learning experience” and “raised some really good questions that we as an industry and as a society haven’t really answered yet, which is what role complex data plays in the consumer: play inside marketing and how we can present them in an appropriate way.”
“We believe that common measurement systems play a role because facts and data need to be comparable,” but work needs to be done to “promote the harmonization of guidance, interpretations and regulations so that we have a level playing field.”, he added added.
Greenwashing: short-term benefits, long-term harm
Some panellists also pointed out that greenwashing does more harm than good to brands in the long run. George Harding-Rolls, campaign manager at the Dutch non-profit Changing Markets Foundation, found that “consumer misleading undermines trust” that “is destroyed in seconds and takes years to restore.”
He pointed to fast fashion giants like H&M releasing ‘conscious collections’ that consumers are increasingly finding to be misleading. “If you are a brand that is greenwashing or a brand that is making unsubstantiated claims, you are creating an unfair business practice for yourself. You’re shooting yourself in the foot with it,” he said.
For this reason, he emphasized that the levers for change we need to focus on are “really well designed legislation and regulation”, noting that certification as it stands is “a pretty narrow tool”.
He also raised the issue of ‘greenhushing’, a relatively new industry term that refers to companies that do not disclose their sustainability initiatives enough to evade scrutiny.
While acknowledging that transparency of sustainability initiatives is key, he also noted that in some ways ‘greenhushing’ can be seen as an “important step in clearing the fog” of greenwashing: “If you can’t make a claim, you should You also make no claim.”
The NCA’s Drevland also stressed the importance of making claims only when they can be substantiated. “We are not saying that companies should not work with sustainability. That’s the number one priority,” she said. “But you shouldn’t say anything about sustainability until you’re in control of your supply chains, human rights and workers’ rights. You need to get these issues under control before you can say your product is more sustainable.”
This article was published on FashionUnited.uk. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ