Licence to Greenwash

The report investigates ten prominent textile certification and voluntary schemes, concluding that most are unambitious, opaque, and lack independence. It argues that these initiatives provide a 'licence to greenwash' for fashion brands, allowing them to project a sustainable image while continuing to rely on fossil-fuel-derived synthetic fibres and overproduction. The analysis highlights specific failures in the Higg Index, Cradle to Cradle, and the Microfibre Consortium, while noting that only a few schemes, like OEKO-TEX®, deliver on their narrow promises of chemical management. The document concludes that voluntary self-regulation has failed and calls for mandatory government legislation to ensure true sustainability and accountability in the fashion sector.

• The majority of analyzed textile initiatives fail to maintain high ambition, often lacking strict requirements or timelines for members, which allows companies with low ambition to join and use the schemes as a 'smokescreen'.
• Many schemes are not holistic and focus only on arbitrary life-cycle stages, enabling brands to 'cherry-pick' certifications to avoid systemic issues like overproduction and fossil-fuel reliance.
• The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) and Higg Index are criticized for a lack of independence due to a funding model where paying members can obtain board seats and voting rights.
• Transparency is a systemic weakness across the analyzed initiatives; many use aggregated reporting to hide individual company performance or keep data behind paywalls.
• The Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) is accused of biasing results in favor of synthetic materials over natural ones, despite synthetics being derived from fossil fuels.
• The Microfibre Consortium (TMC) is described as a delaying tactic for brands, as it has not established concrete action criteria since 2018 and is accused of a pro-synthetic bias.
• Fashion brands use 'delay, distract and derail' tactics, such as setting non-binding targets for 2030 or promoting recycled PET bottles as a solution to avoid reducing overall plastic fibre use.
• Brands have used membership in voluntary schemes to distract legislators and parliamentary committees from poor environmental and social performance, such as modern slavery accusations.
• OEKO-TEX® is noted as one of the few schemes that delivers on its specific promises regarding chemical management and maintains a strict certification process with a history of revoking certificates.
• The EU Ecolabel is identified as the only analyzed scheme with a satisfactory level of independence, as it is implemented through regulation and is not affiliated with specific brands.
• The report concludes that the 'experiment in self-regulation' has failed, as clothing production and the use of fossil-fuel-based synthetic fibres have continued to grow despite the proliferation of schemes.

APA

Changing Markets Foundation (2022). Licence to Greenwash. https://changingmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CM-License-to-greenwash-online-reports-layout-final.pdf

Chicago

Changing Markets Foundation. Licence to Greenwash. 2022. https://changingmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CM-License-to-greenwash-online-reports-layout-final.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Changing Markets Foundation |title=Licence to Greenwash |date=March 2022 |url=https://changingmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CM-License-to-greenwash-online-reports-layout-final.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{changingmarketsfoundation2022licence, author = {{Changing Markets Foundation}}, title = {{Licence to Greenwash}}, institution = {Changing Markets Foundation}, year = {2022}, month = mar, url = {https://changingmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CM-License-to-greenwash-online-reports-layout-final.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }