Are you Greenwashing yourself?
- evekent5
- Mar 17, 2023
- 3 min read
Companies claiming sustainability to boost sales is becoming an evident problem in the fashion industry. With the fashion industries emissions still rising after many claims that the industry was becoming more sustainability conscious.
'The fashion industry is responsible for between 2-8% of global greenhouse gas emissions and despite a recent rise in products being described as sustainable and pledges to curb emissions, according to the World Resources Institute the sector’s environmental footprint is expected to grow by 60% by 2030.' (The Guardian)
The crackdown of regulators is becoming more vital in order to hold companies and brand more accountable for their contributions to the emissions and waste too. With the effects of greenwashing being more apparent the rules on what makes a company more sustainable need to be laid out and made official in order to combat false claims. The EU and the ACCC in Australia have been more cooperative in conducting sweeps, enforcing regulations and rules on sustainability. The International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network works across 65 individual countries to work on the cross boarder enforcement of greenwashing guidance.
“Regulations can help establish standards and definitions to ensure that brands are cutting through this noise and engaging with their customers in authentic, real ways,” says chief sustainability officer and VP of operations Kathleen Talbot. (Vogue)
The ICPEN recently discovered that 40 percent of environmental claims could be misleading consumers, with the Competition and Market Authority (CMA) watchdog saying that more than half of consumers take these claims into account when making purchasing decisions, this simply shows and displays the importance of correct information when displaying a business in order to allow consumers to make informed decisions. This importance of this is as consumers are becoming more sustainability conscious there is the need to ensure that the information they receive is correct and allows consumers to correctly enhance the importance of sustainability.
An example against the issues of greenwashing further. The Netherlands through the ACM issue fines and provisional warnings with them additionally calling on Dutch Legislature in 2016 and 2020 to making stricter rules for certification labels. This is a great example of how it can be prevented. With the Swedish brand Asket choosing to use the words Responsibility and Transparency instead of sustainability.
“I’d like to see more businesses try to figure out what consumers are actually taking from their messaging,” says CMA director of consumer Cecilia Parker Aranha. (Vogue)
The hope remains that customers are reading more into companies philosophies in relation to their sustainability practises. However, we do know that this is not the case. However, in 2022 a UK survey by Deloitte found that 34 percent of the UK had stopped purchasing from certain brands due to environmental/ethical concerns. The way that sustainability is measures is inherently wrong and therefore has lead to misleading information for companies and consumers as a whole, with the Higgs Index not completely allowing a measure of carbon footprints for individual products as it is not physically viable.
'Jeremy Lardeau, the VP of the Higg Index raised concerns. “Is it practical and feasible to implement the NCA guidance on every product in this industry to calculate a product footprint? Not really. Right? It goes back to the complexity of the supply chain, and the availability of data.”' (The Guardian)
Sustainability within a business is not simple however claiming sustainability is. This main problem needs to be addressed, educated and implemented. The issue with supply chains is that many companies work across many boarders and alternate regulatory systems so there is an evident problem with enforcement and regulations. However it should be noted than in order to supply the UK the production must follow the UK guidelines throughout the whole production chain, the most ideal and most efficient way to control this is to globalise regulations.
Regardless, agencies urge brands to prepare for more serious enforcement as customer interest in sustainable fashion shows no signs of slowing down. “Changes could come in the form of government regulations, a self-regulatory agreement led by a coalition of industry bodies, or business-driven initiatives like traffic light labelling and sustainability scores,” says Parker Aranha. “We don’t want to undercut businesses that are innovating and pushing themselves on sustainability, just because others are greenwashing.” (Vogue)
To conclude...
'Alden Wicker, editor in chief of EcoCult, agrees that more specific data is of better use for consumers. She says there are other Higg tools (there are five in total) that offer better insights into a product’s environmental impact. She points to the Higg Facility Environmental Module, which measures the impact of the factories where products are made. “I would rather know which factory a shirt was made in … tell me if the T-shirt is made in a facility with solar power, or if the cotton comes from a co-op that uses fewer pesticides and petroleum-based fertiliser.”' (The Guardian)
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