Conscious , Green , Sustainable … all these are the names of collections you see on the shelves of major fast fashion brands. But what's really behind these eco-friendly intentions? By purchasing these collections, these brands want you to believe that you're making a responsible purchase that doesn't have a negative impact on the environment. Is that really the case?
In this article you will understand:
- The challenges of greenwashing
- Communication strategies
- The difference between greenwashing and green advertising
The challenges of greenwashing
First of all, it is essential to understand the meaning of the term greenwashing in order to better identify its mechanisms.
So let's clearly define what greenwashing is, also called "eco-bleaching" or "greening" in French.
Definition
It's a marketing concept that first emerged in 1991 and has continued to gain momentum ever since. It can be found in various forms, as stated above, and has also been translated as "ecological masquerade," "greenwashing," or "image greening."
This is an advertising process that aims to give a product or brand an eco-friendly, environmentally friendly appearance through communication techniques with the aim of improving its image. However, this is more of a facade than a real brand commitment.
Ecology as a selling point
Large companies want to create a connection between their image and sustainable fashion. Today, ecology, ethics, prioritizing expertise, working conditions, and animal welfare have become selling points for brands. Well aware that attitudes are changing, they want to reach the widest possible audience to increase their growth.
It cannot be said that it is always false advertising, but behind vague language and the absence of certifications, there may be a hidden desire to manipulate a consumer's representation of a product.
Communication strategies
Major fashion, cosmetics, and food companies have found all sorts of strategies to make people believe they have become eco-responsible. It's important to analyze the strategies used to achieve this so-called image change.
Illusory transparency
It's simple: to make us believe this, they use, for example, natural landscapes, animals, fresh ingredients so that the connection with the product is made implicitly, it's all in the suggestion. They can highlight an element of the product, use vague terms to describe it which will allow consumers to identify this product as environmentally friendly.
Take cereals, for example. To improve their image and distract from the fact that they're full of sugar, some companies use this technique. They promote one of their ingredients, whole wheat, which will serve as a selling point. The cereal may be made with whole wheat, but the sugar content remains the same.
The same goes for cosmetic products that rely on the presence of an ingredient in their product, such as almond oil or shea butter, but upon closer inspection, we realize that this ingredient only appears at the end of the composition. This means that the ingredient in question is only present in small quantities because the lists are made in order of increasing.
When it comes to the fashion world, we're seeing more and more so-called eco-responsible collections under the names Green, Conscious, or Sustainable. But is " making sustainable clothing in conditions that are good for people and the planet " a sufficient argument to say that a brand is committed to a sustainable approach? Once again, if we try to find out a little more, we quickly hit a wall because the manufacturing processes are far from transparent.
To see a concrete example, you can read the article by Léa Marcq, founder and editor-in-chief of THE ALLEAH, who investigated the production of a sweatshirt by a major fast fashion player.
Business ethics
Few major fashion brands have committed to a real shift in their environmental policies. For most, their advertising budget remains far higher than that devoted to research and development of eco-friendly products.
This is also one of the strategies of fast fashion brands that promote a Green collection across their entire production. As we saw above, these collections that do not present any label or other certification are only a drop in the ocean, if they are as ecological as they claim. Moreover, this raises the question of other collections that are not stamped Green .
Fortunately, not all brands are created equal, and many new brands that have launched have a real commitment to responsible fashion, starting with us. At Ludis, from the very beginning, the goal was to develop in an eco-responsible way. It is for the sake of transparency that the origin of all the elements of our playsuits are mentioned on the product pages, and you can find all the details of our commitment on the Mission page of our website.
To help you in your research, Challenges magazine has even established a ranking allowing you to see which companies are committed and which are opportunistic.
Also read: which jumpsuit should you choose when you are tall?
How to distinguish greenwashing from green advertising?
As consumers, we all want to feel confident in the products we buy and the brands that sell them. However, as we've seen throughout this article, not all brands are so well-intentioned.
We must therefore learn to learn about brands, check that the language used is concrete, understandable, and verifiable, and check whether the products have certifications or labels. We can no longer rely solely on the ecological arguments put forward by advertisements; we must learn about the ecological approach of brands to verify that the commitment is truly real.
Thanks to the internet, we often have this information just a click away. Blogs like The Good Goods and WeDressFair , associations like Ethics on the Label , and the accounts of certain influencers are reliable sources of information for consuming more responsibly.
Conclusion
There you have it, greenwashing no longer holds any secrets for you. Through this article, we've tried to help you avoid malicious brands and recognize the arguments used in this practice. We hope you find it useful.
No brand is perfect, but given the current climate, it is high time we rethink our consumer habits by favoring committed brands whose efforts are real and measurable.
See you soon !
The Ludis team 🐍