As the industry welcomes stronger protections against greenwashing, are we confusing a customer’s right to reliable information with their willingness to interpret it?
Shoppers say they want proof behind green claims. Whether they use it is another question. Photo: Pexels
Last Wednesday, the European Commission announced plans to withdraw its proposed Green Claims Directive, saying it was unlikely to win enough support from EU member states after more than three years of negotiations. The directive would’ve required companies making voluntary claims, like “made with recycled materials” or “lower environmental impact,” to substantiate them with scientific evidence and have them checked by an independent, accredited verifier. It would’ve also strengthened oversight of environmental labeling schemes.
But this isn’t the end of greenwashing regulation. The proposed Green Claims Directive would have added more detailed requirements for proving and independently verifying environmental claims, but the EU’s separate Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive, known as EmpCo, started applying on September 27. Its rules restrict broad environmental claims like “eco-friendly” and limit which sustainability labels brands can use when marketing products to EU consumers.
Both measures were built around the idea that consumers need reliable environmental information to make informed purchasing decisions. In its impact assessment for EmpCo, the European Commission argued that misleading green claims lead consumers to make “sub-optimal choices” and undermine trust in environmental information. The goal is to help shoppers make more informed decisions while giving businesses clearer rules and a level playing field. The proposed Green Claims Directive followed similar reasoning: the Commission found that 53% of environmental claims it looked at were vague, misleading, or unfounded.
There’s a clear case for holding companies accountable for what they say about their environmental impact. But wanting brands to be transparent is different from wanting to evaluate their environmental claims while shopping. A customer can expect a company to have evidence without wanting to review it themselves.
At SFF26, a panel on sustainability regulation explored who these laws are actually meant to help. If the goal is to help consumers make more informed choices, are shoppers actually using the information brands are increasingly required to provide? And if the rules are also meant to benefit businesses making genuine sustainability improvements, why are some becoming increasingly reluctant to communicate their progress?
In a separate SFF26 session, Pauline Kabitsis of behavioral design consultancy Irrational Labs challenged the industry’s reliance on education as a route to behavior change. She pointed to the US “5 A Day” campaign, which made people far more aware that they should eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
“It increased awareness, but it didn’t change behavior,” she said.
Acting on information, she explained, also depends on whether someone has the ability, opportunity and motivation to do so. “Part of motivation is education, but it’s a small part.” A better-informed customer isn’t necessarily a customer who makes a different choice.
Liz Katsadouros of Kantar saw the same pattern in her research, presented in another SFF26 session. People “still fail to act because sometimes the experience just asks too much of them,” she said.
The cost of making a claim
On paper, the rules sound straightforward. Companies making environmental claims need evidence to back them up, and throughout the SFF26 discussion, panelists emphasized that brands can continue communicating their sustainability efforts as long as their claims are specific, accurate and supported by evidence. But having the evidence doesn’t necessarily mean a brand is in the clear.
During the discussion, Sustainable Fashion Forum founder Brittany Sierra pointed to UK Advertising Standards Authority rulings involving Nike, Superdry and Lacoste. All three brands presented evidence supporting environmental improvements, including recycled-material content, independent certifications and environmental impact assessments. Yet their advertisements were banned because the evidence didn’t substantiate the broader sustainability claims as consumers were likely to understand them.
“The scope of the claim that they had made was so broad that the scope of the evidence that they had was simply not enough,” said Jessica Howe, a lawyer at DLA Piper who advises companies on greenwashing risk.
The cases raise questions about how claims might be treated under different regulatory frameworks, particularly when brands are communicating across multiple markets. There’s also the reputational risk. When an advertisement is banned for misleading environmental claims, the resulting headlines can associate a brand with greenwashing, even when the company has made genuine environmental improvements. Consumers seeing those headlines may never read the full ruling to understand what the regulator actually objected to.
For brands, that creates a difficult situation. Even when they’re investing in sustainability and have evidence of their progress, communicating those efforts can expose them to legal scrutiny and reputational damage.
And this is happening at a time when sustainability is already struggling to compete for corporate attention. In November 2025, The Business of Fashion and McKinsey’s State of Fashion 2026 characterized sustainability as being at a stalemate. Nearly a year later, the question is how brands will justify continued investment in sustainability as economic pressures, competing priorities and regulatory demands shape their business decisions.
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When brands decide to say less
During SFF26, Nynke Eggen of The Sustainability Club described seeing brands pull back on environmental claims because they couldn’t fully substantiate them. More concerning, she said some companies are questioning whether to continue using certain lower-impact materials if they can’t afford the certification or verification needed to communicate their benefits.
She described brands asking, “Should we stop using this specific material because we’re not sure we can fully back it up?” That, she said, “would be an industry shift that really goes against what this directive stands for.”
That raises the possibility that the consequences of stricter claims requirements could extend beyond marketing and begin influencing sustainability decisions themselves. At SFF26, Austin Whitman, CEO and co-founder of The Change Climate Project, pointed out that as companies face more compliance requirements, they aren’t necessarily getting more money to meet them. He’s seen companies pull from the same sustainability budgets that are supposed to fund the actual work.
As he described it, companies are effectively saying: “We have this new compliance obligation, we’re moving money from the good things that we were doing over to the compliance things that we need to do.”
If more of that budget is going toward proving compliance, how much is left to invest in improving materials, reducing emissions, or addressing the environmental and social impacts of their operations? Are we creating a system where companies are spending more time and money proving they’re doing the right thing than actually doing it?
So who actually benefits from all of this?
Behavioral science research has repeatedly shown that providing people with more information doesn’t necessarily change their behavior. Environmental information may influence purchasing decisions, but its presence alone doesn’t guarantee a different outcome.
Whitman, whose organization runs The Climate Label certification, put it plainly: “People who are trying to assess sustainability claims generally are not pulling out an app or looking at a 20-page PDF… They’re looking for something that’s quick.”
Meanwhile, the SFF26 discussions raised questions about what these requirements could mean for the companies expected to comply with them. If companies are spending more to substantiate and communicate their environmental claims, taking on greater legal and reputational risk, and potentially reconsidering sustainability investments as a result, what outcomes are we expecting those requirements to produce?
None of this is an argument against holding brands accountable. Consumers deserve truthful information, and companies making environmental claims should be able to substantiate them. Sandra Capponi, co-founder of Good On You, pointed to one group the rules clearly help: brands doing the work.
“At least they know that the brands that aren’t doing good things but were saying things can’t anymore,” she said.
But accountability also requires looking at whether the regulations themselves are achieving what they were designed to do. Will consumers use this information? Will it help them make better decisions? Are the requirements encouraging businesses to improve their environmental performance, or creating additional barriers for companies already struggling to justify sustainability investments?
EmpCo only began applying on September 27, so it’s too early to know how these requirements will play out. What happens over the next year will be worth watching, particularly as fashion companies continue navigating the economic pressures and competing priorities that have made sustainability a harder sell internally.
Because ultimately, the goal should be an industry that’s making more progress, not simply making fewer claims.
