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ΕλληνικάGreenwashing
Recent data from the European Commission shows that many fashion brands and retailers are guilty of greenwashing and exaggerating their sustainability credentials without evidence.
This is what we define as “greenwashing” : companies giving a false impression of their environmental impact or benefits.
For examples, many brands make a wide range of claims about the fibers they use without providing evidence of their environmental credentials.
Consumers should also pay attention to the meaning of labels and certifications (see next chapter): there are more than 200 environmental labels active in the EU, and more than 450 active worldwide, some of these methods and initiatives are reliable, some not.
Brands may also claim that their products are sustainable, taking into account only certain components of their products, e.g. by talking about materials and environmental aspects, but leaving out processes and social aspects, and thus sharing misleading information.
This unclear and inconsistent attitude between words and actions also affects social commitment. Many major fashion brands have publicly supported social causes, for example in solidarity with movements such as Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate on social media. This support must translate into responsible action in addressing discrimination and inequality in their operations and supply chains.
However, Fashion Transparency Index reports that only 3% of brands voluntarily disclose the annual ethnic pay gap in their operations and only 8% publish their actions on racial and ethnic equality in their supply chains.[1]
This is particularly surprising considering that huge volumes of production take place in regions where issues of migration, caste and ethnicity facilitate labor abuse and exploitation, such as in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. In India, for example, home-based garment workers are almost entirely women and girls from historically oppressed ethnic communities who suffer high volumes of exploitation; or workers from a lower caste community are targeted by recruiters of migrant garment workers.
Greenwashing misleads market players and does not give the right value to companies that really make an effort to green their products and processes. Ultimately, it damages attempts to move towards a greener economy.
To address this problem, the European Strategy for Sustainable Textiles gives directives on greenwashing. The regulation states that environmental claims that are not supported by tools for measuring environmental performance, such as recognized certifications, will be banned, and voluntary sustainability labels covering environmental or social aspects will have to be based on third-party verification or be established by public authorities.
While the European Union is thinking about how to set up these directives, the Kering group has just released a “Guidance for Sustainability Claims”, as part of the group’s guide for sustainability strategy, that explore many aspects of sustainability communication, such as the use of precise and verifiable claims, that do not misuse images related to nature. All brands belonging to the group will have to comply with a series of precise guidelines to make their communication to consumers more transparent.
Ultimately, it is essential that environmental performance declarations of companies and products are reliable, comparable, and verifiable across the EU, to encourage market actors – consumers, businesses, investors – to make greener decisions.
[1] Fashion Transparency Index 2022 , p.11