Now, Netherlands Trashes H&M's Sustainability Claims; Decathlon Indicted Too; BCI Tag Not Enough

In the spring of 2021, the ACM had asked the two clothing retailers to take a critical look at their claims. The ACM subsequently continued its investigation into H&M and Decathlon, among other retail chains.

The investigation revealed, for example, that Decathlon and H&M offered their products using general terms such as “ecodesign” and “conscious“ without immediately specifying clearly the sustainability benefits with the claim. In the course of the investigation, the two retailers indicated they were willing to adjust their practices, and to make commitments.

The most important findings of ACM’s investigation into H&M’s commercial practices were:

• H&M uses the sustainability claims “Conscious” and “Conscious Choice”, without explaining what these actually mean. In addition, an explanation of the sustainability benefits for specific products is lacking.
• H&M provides information about its sustainability efforts under the heading “product background” (in Dutch: “productachtergrond”) of individual products, regardless of whether these are made of “more sustainable” materials, which may incorrectly give the impression that these products have sustainability benefits. In these texts, H&M emphasises the intentions to work with more sustainable materials, without making clear what the current status is with regard to those intentions, thereby allowing too rosy a picture about the current state-of-play to emerge. Moreover, in the text about cotton, H&M gives the impression that all cotton that H&M Nederland uses is “sustainable” (in Dutch: “duurzaam”). The majority of the cotton is purchased through the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). However, with cotton purchased through BCI, it is impossible to guarantee that an individual product actually contains any Better Cotton threads, thus making it impossible to claim with certainty that the cotton is sustainable.

The most important findings of ACM’s investigation into Decathlon’s commercial practices were:

• Decathlon uses the sustainability claim “Ecodesign”, without immediately specifying clearly the sustainability benefits with the claim.. In addition, an explanation regarding the sustainability benefits is missing for specific products. Also, the sustainability benefits of several products are not or only sparingly explained on the product page. Finally, Decathlon uses a sustainability filter “Ecodesign” of which the explanation is vague and unclear. In the explanation of the filter, the criteria for the “Ecodesign” products are not clear.
• Decathlon uses the “Environmental labelling system”, in which they gave grades to, in any case, “Ecodesign” products, ranging between A and E. These grades and the functioning of the environmental labelling system were not or only sparingly explained by Decathlon.

Guidelines on sustainability claims: The ACM also, on the occasion, made clear the five rules of thumb for honest sustainability claims:

1. Make clear what sustainability benefit the product offers;
2. Substantiate your sustainability claims with facts, and keep them up-to-date;
3. Comparisons with other products, services, or companies must be fair;
4. Be honest and specific about your company’s efforts with regard to sustainability;
5. Make sure that visual claims and labels are useful to consumers, not confusing.