Navigating Europe’s fast fashion green claims under new EU laws

Just Style investigates how fashion brands will need to pay closer attention to any green product claims when new European Union (EU) laws come into force.

The two laws are linked, a European Commission spokesperson explained. The ‘empowering consumers’ proposal, that amends the 2005 unfair commercial practices directive (UCPD), itself later amended by a 2019 directive on better enforcement and modernisation of Union consumer protection rules, sets general principles for environmental claims. The new legislation includes banning unsubstantiated claims, self-certified labels and ‘climate-neutral’ claims, where sellers and manufacturers need to achieve this through purchasing carbon credit offsets.

The green claims proposal introduces requirements on how to properly substantiate and communicate environmental claims, providing legal certainty for consumer protection authorities and fashion companies making claims. Notably: “Every claim must be checked and certified against requirements before being communicated to European consumers,” the spokesperson said. By contrast, the older UCPD has only required a marketing standards authority to undertake “verification after the claims were made”, should they prompt concern about their accuracy, she added.

This is something George Harding-Rolls, a UK-based greenwashing campaigner, and a freelance consultant for global agency Eco-Age, is well aware of: “In the light of new rules, particularly in the EU, green claims will have to be substantiated to a much higher level, putting paid to the lazy greenwashing of the past.

Europe fashion brands’ green claims come under scrutiny

“In just a few years, greenwashing has changed dramatically. In 2022, practically every fast fashion brand had some sort of eco-collection, miring customers in a confusing sea of paper-thin green claims, with research showing 59% of green claims by fashion brands were misleading.

“Since then, crackdowns in the UK, EU and legal action in the US have forced fashion brands to reassess the authenticity of claims they’re making,” said Harding-Rolls. “This has seen entire collections go offline, such as Asos’s Responsible Edit,” while H&M’s Conscious Collection and Zara’s Join Life ranges have come under criticism from green groups such as Greenpeace saying they are in the “greenwash danger zone”. In 2023, Zara’s owner Inditex announced in its 2022 Annual Report that it would discontinue its ‘Join Life’ sustainability ‘indicator’ from its garments. Meanwhile, on 22 February 2024, the Commission announced that “Zalando has committed to removing misleading sustainability flags and icons displayed next to products offered on its platform.”

Under the legislation, greenwashing companies also risk fines. The new UCPD penalties will apply to the new prohibitions on greenwashing, with legal definitions saying this is when companies make misleading claims about the environmental merits of their products and services.

Meanwhile, the green claims proposal “sets clear rules on how member states should ‘punish’ clothing companies not respecting the requirements,” the spokesperson said. Under its terms, companies have 30 days from receiving a complaint to adjust their claims to be compliant or stop using them, she made clear. “If they fail to do so, EU member states will have to apply ‘effective, proportionate and dissuasive’ penalties such as fines, confiscation of revenues linked to the misleading claim/s and temporary exclusion from public procurement processes.”

Maximum fines under this directive should be at least 4% of the trader’s total annual turnover in the member state or member states concerned.

These new laws have been welcomed by sustainability experts. But Harding-Rolls warned such legislation on greenwashing is “more of a recontextualisation of existing consumer protection and competition law for the greenwashing era”. Tackling greenwashing is important to “clear the smokescreen of misleading claims,” but ending it will not move the fashion sector any closer to sustainability per se, he said.

A shift towards genuine sustainability efforts

“Instead, companies should focus on genuine sustainability efforts, such as investing in circular materials, cutting supply chain emissions, shifting to renewable energy in manufacturing, preventing textile waste, paying a living wage and increasing climate resilience of workers,” he argued.

The European Apparel and Textile Confederation (Euratex) agrees new legislation must be part of a coherent framework with existing or upcoming EU legislation such as regulations on ecodesign, textile labelling and digital product passports.

Euratex policy officer Ekaterina Stoyanova said that this would minimise administrative burdens and costs, avoid confusion and enable effective compliance, especially considering impacts on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Environment sustainable governance (ESG) expert Dr Ngoc Nguyen from Messina University, Sicily, argued forcing clothing manufacturers to only use sustainability labels based on official certification schemes or established by public authorities would help eradicate greenwashing. This suggestion has been adopted by the European Parliament in its proposed amendments to the green claims directive.

Benefits would include credibility; transparency; regulatory compliance; consumer empowerment; and market competitiveness, but this could be expensive, particularly for SMEs, hinder innovation and cause difficulties in aligning certifications internationally, said Nguyen.

Dr Wren Montgomery, associate professor of management and sustainability at the Ivey Business School, London, Ontario, Canada, and co-founder of US-based Greenwash Action Lab, said to avoid greenwashing, companies should be open and transparent, give concrete measurable plans for next steps and get third-party verification and certification wherever possible.

Tools such as Fashion Revolution’s annual fashion transparency index, that from 2017 has asked companies to note carbon footprint and child labour policies, were also key.

Meanwhile Nguyen said new greenwashing restrictions would help established textiles markets like Europe or the US. But developing countries would face challenges on the cost and compliance front, “therefore green hushing is more likely to happen,” when companies “might be hesitant to disclose information if they fear stringent penalties”.

Divergent regulations across regions “may create challenges for multinational companies and could lead to inconsistent reporting practices,” she added.

The fashion brands successfully tackling sustainability

Ending positively, she praised fashion designer Stella McCartney for using organic cotton, recycled polyester and innovative materials like Mylo – a mushroom-based leather alternative.

Another winner, she said, is sports clothing specialists Patagonia, whose “unwavering commitment to using 98% recycled materials and Fairtrade certified organic cotton… demonstrate its genuine concern for the planet’s wellbeing.”

Harding-Rolls understands concern that if green claims proposals are not adopted before the European elections, more right-wing politicians may be elected to the EU assembly, affecting the final stages of talks on the green claims directive.

Some centre-right critics have characterised these green policies as protectionist, but he disagreed: “They reflect standards that must be reached for the sector to operate in a truly more sustainable way and the vast gap between the EU’s leadership on this and the rest of the world.”

By Just Style