Fashion brands in the greenwashing spotlight, again

Scrutiny of the fashion sector appears only to be increasing, with the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) having issued three rulings against Lacoste, Nike and Superdry in relation to their Google ads. Published on 3 December 2025, the rulings are expressly noted to form part of a wider investigation into environmental claims in the retail fashion sector. 

What did the advertisements say?

While each brand’s advert was different, they all centred around describing the clothing line or items in question as “sustainable”, with limited accompanying information. This, the companies argued, was owing to Google ads’ limit of 30 characters for the headline and 90 characters for the body of the text, which significantly hampered what the companies could say in any advertisement. Each company used the term “sustainability” to highlight different elements of the advertised product or line, which is where the crux of the problem lay.

How did the companies respond?

Nike’s advert referred to its “Sustainable Materials”, which it said was intended to reflect the availability of products that incorporated recycled materials, rather than being specific to a particular product. Nike assumed that customers would understand that this was not a statement that all their products were sustainable, and noted that further information about specific sustainability attributes was available on their website. Superdry said similar, stating that the sustainability credentials for a product, which it confirmed were substantiated, were clearly provided on the relevant page. 

Both Nike and Superdry argued that a consumer would progress to their websites to purchase the products, and in doing so would have access to detailed sustainability information for the advertised products, while also pointing to that underlying data which substantiated their claims. While Superdry acknowledged that the full life-cycle of the relevant products was not publicly available and that the advertisement had therefore been produced in error, it still contested that consumers had not been misled about the sustainability attributes of the advertised products.

Each company provided evidence of the verification steps it undertakes to understand a product’s sustainability credentials, although Lacoste acknowledged it was very difficult to substantiate sustainability claims. It had provided details of the impact calculation method used and the analysis of the environmental footprint, while Nike and Superdry demonstrated that they assessed the “sustainability” of a product by reference to a percentage threshold of material or standard. All three companies removed the ads in question, either as a result of the complaint or, in Nike’s case, as part of their usual advertising practices.

The rulings

Despite the evidence provided by all three companies, the ASA still ruled in each case that the relevant advertisement was misleading and that it must not appear again in the form investigated. The ASA considered that the use of the term “sustainable” in each of the advertisements, without qualification, was likely to be understood to mean that all clothing referenced in the ads, across their entire life cycle, would “at the very least have no detrimental impact on the environment”. 

The ASA decided that the way in which the advertisements were phrased suggested that the claims were absolute, without a high enough level of substantiation to accompany them. While the evidence provided by the companies demonstrated a degree of environmental consciousness, this was not sufficient to merit the claim that the clothes in question were sustainable, indicating just how high the bar is for advertising the sustainability credentials of a product. 

A note on the Active Ad Monitoring system

In the background section of each claim, the ASA also stated that the advertisements were identified for investigation by intelligence collected by its Active Ad Monitoring system, which uses AI to actively review advertisements in specific sectors. The ASA has been using its Active Ad Monitoring system for several years to keep up with the rapid expansion of product advertisements.

The ASA prides itself on being a proactive regulator, stating that the Active Ad Monitoring system enables it to use AI and machine learning to sort through large volumes of data and deliver intelligence on which the regulator can base investigations and enforcement action. In its briefing note, published in September 2025, the ASA referred to the benefits of this system as part of its ongoing crackdown on greenwashing, which echoes the statement in each of its rulings that it used the Active Ad Monitoring system to uncover the non-compliant advertisements. 

What does this mean for fashion brands?

Regulatory inquiries into the fashion sector are nothing new – the Competition and Markets Authority has previously carried out its own investigation into greenwashing in the industry. However, these latest rulings from the ASA suggest that the bar is very high for brands which want to position themselves to consumers as sustainable. The evidence provided by the brands, particularly in the case of Lacoste, was robust and indicative of sustainable ambitions, but still fell short. 

The rulings suggest that much more is needed from the industry’s practices as a whole before clothing can be considered truly sustainable. The focus of the ASA on the full life-cycle of the products suggests a systemic problem that needs to be solved – it is not enough that these brands are reducing their own environmental footprints or incorporating a degree of recycled material; the entire supply chain needs to provide environmental benefits before a brand can claim that its clothing is truly “sustainable”.