ACM continues campaign against misleading sustainability claims in the clothing sector

10-11-2021 - ACM subsequently checked sustainability-related claims made by ten major clothing companies for accuracy, clarity, and verifiability of the information. ACM assessed in particular whether the companies correctly informed consumers regarding:

1. The sustainability benefit of the product. This cannot be phrased using vague, absolute or general terms without any explanation;
2. The use of organic cotton and the percentage of organic cotton that a clothing piece contains, if it is less than 95%; and
3. Sustainability filters and sustainable collections, and the criteria and substantiation used in those contexts.

Bad examples that ACM has come across:

• A clothing company uses vague/absolute and general terms such as ‘sustainable’ or ‘ethical’ on its tags or on the main page of its website. The explanations of these terms are not directly given with the statements. In some cases, even on the product page, it is not explained what the sustainability benefit of the product is.
• A clothing company offers a special sustainability collection. The products that are part of this collection are all given a specific name, but it is unclear what criteria are used in that context. It is thus unclear what the sustainability benefit is of these products in comparison with other products.
• On a T-shirt’s tag, it says ‘organic cotton’. Information found elsewhere on the website reveals that the T-shirt contains less than 95% organic cotton. In that case, percentages or ranges of percentages of the amount of organic cotton must be given, for example: T-shirt made from 60% organic cotton.

Source: ACM

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Sustainable consumption plays a major role in the sustainability transition of our industry and the reason why this is prioritised by  ACM.

ACM has drawn up a guideline for sustainability claims and communication. The guide contains five rules of thumb and practical examples to support companies formulate their sustainability claims in a fair and transparent manner. These five rules are;

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

Consumers have the right to check the validity of a product claim, so it is very important to keep all documentation on file. Certification can be very helpful, since it is a standardised way of collecting proof in your supply chain which substantiates the claim you wish to make.

Another way of communicating about of your product, is being transparent about its impact.

A new tool will be launched to support this very soon, the Modint bAwear Score. Sign up for our webmeeting 

Read more about the ACM guidelines (in Dutch & English) here and here.