What fashion wants from the FTC’s anti-greenwashing guidelines

How the green guidelines are updated will have implications for every consumer-facing industry, but here are the highlights of what sustainability leaders in fashion and beauty want to see.

Clear definitions

Common label claims—such as “sustainable” and “natural” and increasingly “regenerative” and “circular”—have no legal meaning or criteria for use on products.

Bettina Baumgarten, who practices fashion law and consults on fashion policy at her firm Fashion CUTS Consulting, says this needs to change. “Industries have exploited the inherent ambiguity of the guidelines to do exactly the kind of consumer confusion and deception that the FTC’s guidelines are designed to prevent.”

“Sustainable” may be at the top of the list of claims that need definition, but there are many others: renewable, reusable and recyclable, biodegradable, degradable, and climate-related terms—and in practice. The work being done to ensure them – including carbon-neutral, low-carbon and others.

Loose definitions won’t help, experts say: Transparency is paramount, with implications for racial equity across the sector. In comments filed with the FTC, three industry experts — Sandra Gonza, impact strategist and sustainability consultant at Tailwind Co. Cornell Montgomery, founder and CEO of Sovereignty Company; and Kenya Wiley, a policy consultant and professor at Georgetown University — called for revisions to the Green Guidelines to be written through a lens of racial equity and inclusion.

“Fast fashion and other big brands are in a better financial position to absorb the legal and public relations costs associated with greenwashing claims. For black and brown designers, fashion-tech startups and other entrepreneurs who operate as small businesses, this is often not the case – for fear of being called out.” “It may force them to silence their sustainable solutions,” the trio’s letter to the FTC reads. “It is imperative that the FTC provide legal certainty and clarity to the term sustainability—especially for fashion entrepreneurs who do not have large budgets and funds for legal and crisis communications.”

Equity, diversity and inclusion

They say that circular and renewal, as well as green guidelines, should not only be on the list, but should also acknowledge their cultural and historical roots. Regenerative agriculture, for example, has become a popular green marketing term, but it criticizes “the appropriating of indigenous cultures and black farmers, both in Africa and throughout the diaspora” – which involves borrowing from indigenous and other marginalized cultures but leaving the people of those cultures behind.