Sustainability's shadow side: brands face crackdown on empty claims

As Earth Month rolls around each year, brands rush to market their products as the sustainable option – a guilt-free purchase for the environmentally conscious, timely for the holiday. But this year, they might reconsider. Not only are customers more attuned to sniffing out shallow marketing claims than ever before, but a flimsily connected Earth Day promotion can also land brands in legal hot water.

The asa's crackdown on greenwashing

In December, the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned adverts from Superdry, Lacoste, and Nike. At the heart of the ASA's complaints was the use of the word 'sustainable' or 'sustainability' without high levels of substantiation to quantify how, exactly, the products in question were sustainable – a word heavily used, but without a universally agreed upon definition.

None of the brands responded to requests for comment, but the bans, which came as part of a wider piece of work from the ASA as it investigates environmental claims in the retail fashion sector, illustrate just how far the needle has shifted in sustainability storytelling.

For many, the ASA's crackdown was long overdue. Fashion's big sustainability surge at the tail end of the 2010s and the early 2020s can be typified by promises rather than action, and greenwashing swelled as a result. Whether it was only using so-called 'sustainable' materials, diverting textiles from landfills, or decarbonization, brands were eager to put their stake in the ground on sustainability-related targets.

Though target-setting is necessary to create company-wide climate action roadmaps, promises soon began to ring hollow as the deadlines to meet targets came and went without meaningful progress.