Greenwashing

The Competition and Markets Authority has published the Green Claims Code that articulates how consumer protection law applies to environmental claims and provides a framework for businesses to make environmental claims that help consumers make informed choices. 

The Pods Are Plastic bill faces uncertain prospects in the New York City Council. If it does pass, however, it will only go a short way toward mitigating laundry-related microplastic pollution.

In a positive step forward, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have, in overwhelming majority, approved the Green Claims Directive that would entail companies to submit evidence about their environmental marketing claims.

The so-called green claims directive moved a step further as European Parliament adopted a position on the rules on how firms can validate their environmental marketing claims.

Advocacy nonprofit Stand.earth has filed an anti-competition complaint against leading Canadian fashion brand Lululemon claiming that the latter’s ‘Be Planet’ campaign misleads customers about its environmental impact.

Europe moved closer to its aim to stem greenwashing as European Parliament Wednesday approved a directive that will improve product labelling and ban the use of misleading environmental claims, helping consumers make better purchasing choices.

Rampant greenwashing in the textile-fashion-apparel industry is now up front on the EU radar as it declared the 'Proposal for a Directive on Green Claims', even as industry analysts call for it to be writ into law by Member States.

As synthetic fibres represent over two-thirds (69%) of textiles, a share that is projected to skyrocket in the future, they have become a huge cause of fashion’s ongoing waste crisis, which shows no sign of dwindling. And, instead of phasing out their addiction to synthetics, fashion brands are turning to greenwashing tactics.

If the just-concluded COP27 at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt is anything to go by, the fashion industry has cut a sorry figure. The industry has made progress in recent years, but all that pales into insignificance given the goal that shifts farther by the day. Add to that the rampant greenwashing, the constant self-adulation, and the abject failure in not letting the Global South into the entire process. A texfash.com take on the Conference.

Environmental consultancy Quantis has published a guidance that is meant to help companies and brands avoid any potential risks of greenwashing statements by enabling them to shape clear, transparent and substantiated claims. It notes that while the use of environmental claims has become mainstream, greenwashing—the use of misleading environmental claims—has also been on the rise.