Fashion Brands’ Addiction to Fossil Fuels: CMF report reveals that 59% of “green claims” made by most fashion brands are false

Fashion brands can’t get enough of synthetic materials: they are durable, they are colourful and most importantly they are cheaper than natural materials.

As sustainability has become the latest trend for fashion brands to capitalise on and 'greenwashing' is widespread, the Changing Markets Foundation (CMF) has released a report that reveals the true extent of fast fashion companies' reliance on fossil fuel-derived fibres. The CMF has compared percentages of synthetic fibres in each brand's fashion items to the sustainability claims they make. The report also ranks 46 fashion brands on other relevant issues: transparency, commitment to environmentally-friendly initiatives, and their use of 'greenwashing' to sell their products.

Shockingly, the CMF's report revealed that of the products with some kind of green claim attached to them by their retailer, an enormous 59% of these claims flouted green-claims guidance in some way. The report calls for tightened EU regulation on green claims, as brands are currently getting away with a shocking quantity of greenwashing entirely unchallenged.

Furthermore, many fast fashion brands advertise their shift to using ocean plastic or recycled plastic PET bottles in order to reinforce their sustainable image, when in reality these brands still lack takeback schemes and fibre-to-fibre recycling technology. As the report states, such an approach is an insufficient sustainable commitment by companies doing such vast environmental damage, as it does very little to prevent the plastic crisis, instead just committing to dealing with its aftermath.

You can read the full report by the CMF here:

http://changingmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/SyntheticsAnonymous_FinalWeb.pdf