This post breaks down how to find sustainable brands and avoid greenwashing!
Voting with your wallet has never been more important. Many of the world’s current environmental and social problems – like climate change, plastic pollution, social injustice, and more – can be tied to the products we buy and the companies we buy them from.
Unfortunately, companies are aware that people want to buy from sustainable brands, so many use it as a marketing tool. Rather than truly evaluating their social and environmental impacts and working to do better, brands that engage in greenwashing lie about or exaggerate their sustainability efforts to get you to buy from them.
It is so frustrating to buy into a brand’s beautifully worded sustainability stories, only to find out later that they are still using unsustainable materials, underpay their workers, or use excessive plastic packaging!
The only way to avoid falling for greenwashing is to do a bit more research before you buy anything. Yes, this is extra effort, but both the planet and your wallet will thank you for it. It has the added benefit of making you slow down before purchasing, a key step in fighting overconsumption.
What Makes a Brand Sustainable?
Before we dive into how to find sustainable brands, let’s define what makes a brand sustainable.
Sustainability means meeting business goals while protecting the environment and treating people ethically. So, there are two main aspects of sustainability: environmental and ethical impacts. They are not separate issues but very much interlinked. Even so, there are different things to look at when evaluating a brand.
The environmental side of sustainability is about minimising negative environmental impacts. The specifics differ per industry, but generally, the main environmental impacts relate to the materials used, the production processes, and waste management. This includes reducing carbon emissions, conserving water, minimising chemical use, and ensuring products are designed for longevity and recyclability.
The ethical or social side of sustainability focuses on the fair treatment of workers, ensuring they receive living wages and work in safe conditions. It is also about the impacts of the business on the local community.
A sustainable brand has a clear and proven strategy to ensure both environmental and social impacts are considered. No brand is perfect, but they have to make genuine efforts to reduce negative impacts and make sustainable choices.
An important point that I feel is forgotten sometimes is that a sustainable brand should also not encourage overconsumption. Even if products are made ethically and sustainably, it’s not sustainable to buy lots of products you don’t really need. Products should be designed to last long and not require constant replacement. If brands are constantly running big sales and encouraging people to buy more, I can’t call them sustainable.
A sustainable brand genuinely tries to use its business to provide sustainable products or services, rather than using sustainability to sell its brand.
What is Greenwashing?
Greenwashing is when a company makes claims or suggests it is sustainable, but doesn’t live up to it. While this can take many different forms, some harder to spot than others, the main greenwashing red flags are:
1. They use vague buzzwords
“Eco-friendly”, “Green”, and “Conscious” are just a few of the sustainability buzzwords used in marketing. There is nothing incorrect about them per se, but it becomes greenwashing if they are used without explaining what they actually do to be eco-friendly. This includes vague ethical claims like “we care about our people” and “ethically sourced”.
2. They only focus on one or a few (irrelevant) sustainability impacts
Having biodegradable packaging while using synthetic materials in products is not sustainable. Purchasing renewable electricity while underpaying workers is not sustainable. Donating 1% to the planet while doing nothing to minimise the impact of the production process is not sustainable.
Many brands that greenwash will shout from the rooftops about their few sustainability achievements, and conveniently leave out the impact of the rest of their business. Especially packaging is often used for this, as it’s the easiest to change and can be branded beautifully to look “green”. Not saying that sustainable packaging isn’t important, but it is only a very small part of most companies’ environmental impact.
3. They use materials that sound sustainable but are not
The fashion industry is a good example of trying to sell certain clothing fabrics as sustainable when they are not. The biggest one is recycled synthetics (like recycled polyester or nylon). Recycled or not, these are still just plastic. They still shed microplastics during wear and stay in the environment forever after being discarded. And instead of closed-loop recycling, like turning plastic bottles into more bottles several times, recycled fabrics cannot be recycled again, creating more waste.
Another example is new fabrics like bamboo or eucalyptus. They sound natural but are actually semi-synthetics, specifically viscose or rayon, requiring toxic chemicals to be processed into fabric. There are more sustainable versions that use a closed-loop system, but if that is not specified, it’s safe to assume they are greenwashing.
4. They only have a few products or specific product lines that are sustainable
Again, fashion is especially guilty of this, but other industries do it too. They will proudly introduce a “Conscious” or “Eco” line, which may actually be quite sustainable, but do nothing to change the other 99% of their product lines.
If a company truly cared about the environment and people, it would apply sustainability principles to all products, not just a few to shout about.
5. They use colours and branding to suggest sustainability
This one can be a lot more subtle and harder to spot. Using green and other natural colours, nature imagery, and hopeful-sounding phrases can all manipulate you into thinking a brand is sustainable without them ever having to say the word.
This can also take the form of manipulative social posts. One infamous example is a post by Shell in 2020, one of the most polluting companies in the world. Instead of taking any accountability for their own actions, they asked their followers what they were “willing to change to help reduce emissions”. Honestly, the audacity.
6. They make specific claims without verification or certifications
Sometimes brands make specific claims, like claiming something is Organic or Carbon neutral, without the proper verification or proof. Some even go as far as adding their own label, made to look like a certification logo.
Terms like Organic, Biodegradable, Natural, Fair Trade, Carbon Neutral, etc, are not always legally protected (which is why brands get away with it), but there are specific standards that set out the requirements for them. When brands make claims like that, look up their explanations and specifically which external standards they are certified to.
7. They use misleading numbers or percentages
A clear example of greenwashing is when a brand makes claims with cool numbers or percentages, which turn out to be manipulated or misleading. For example, they might claim an x% reduction in carbon emissions without specifying the base year, or which parts of their carbon footprint are included (they often leave out the supply chain, which is usually about 80% of a company’s overall impact).
Or, they claim they have “saved x amount of trees”, which really just means they put their estimated CO2 savings into a calculator that estimates the equivalent number of trees that would need to be planted to absorb the CO2 emissions avoided. How is that “saving trees”?
On the flip side, they also might make generalised claims which are only true for a percentage of the product or company. For example, fashion brands often name clothes after the most sustainable fibre in it (wool, organic cotton, recycled, etc) but when you check the label, it turns out only a small percentage of the fabric is sustainable, and it is mixed with other, often synthetic, fibres.
8 Tips to Find Actually Sustainable Brands
1. Look them up on brand directories or Eco retailers
The easiest way to find sustainable brands is to look them up in places where the research has already been done for you! Sustainable brand directories are great for finding independently researched brands. I also like looking at eco retailers that specifically sell sustainable products, since they only stock brands that they have determined to be sustainable.
My favourite directories are:
- Good on You, a sustainable directory for fashion and beauty products, with clear and well-researched ratings of most brands
- B Corp. This is one of the biggest, global, and holistic sustainability certifications a company can obtain. Their directory of certified companies contains all companies that meet their high standards of environmental and social impact.
- Ethical Superstore, a UK-based retailer of sustainable and ethical homeware.
2. Check the materials or ingredients list
One of the most important aspects of a product is the material or ingredients it is made from. For clothing, focus on natural fabrics and avoid synthetics, recycled synthetics, or semi-synthetics. When it comes to furniture and decor, avoid plastics and look for natural and durable materials like wood, stone, metal, and ceramic.
For personal care products and food, look at the ingredients and make sure they are as sustainable and natural as possible and avoid harmful substances. I like to use the Yuka app to scan products and get a complete breakdown of the sustainability and healthiness of the ingredients.
3. Read the available information on their website
Evaluate the brand’s mission statement, sustainability reports, and the information available on their website. Is sustainability a core part of their mission and values, or is it only found on a token “sustainability” page? Do they publish annual sustainability reports with robust data and ambitious plans, or is it just a fancy marketing report?
Truly sustainable brands acknowledge both their achievements and the challenges they face. A strong sustainability approach is holistic, addressing materials, production processes, and labour conditions. If a brand’s sustainability communication is surface-level, highlighting only a few good aspects and ignoring the rest, it’s a red flag.
4. Look for third-party certifications
Third-party sustainability certifications are incredibly helpful to spot sustainable brands. These are independently verified standards that require strict assessments and audits to obtain. They are important for assurance, since without them, brands can claim whatever they want.
There are a few caveats, though. First of all, not all certifications are created equal. Some certifications have very low standards or no robust auditing process, and are almost greenwashers themselves. If you’ve never heard of a certification, do a quick search to see how well it is regarded and how robust its methods are.
Secondly, ensure that the certification is actually relevant to the impacts of the product. For example, if something has “FCS-certified” on cardboard packaging, it just means the packaging is certified, since it is a certification for sustainably sourced wood. It says nothing about the product itself (unless it is paper-based).
Lastly, remember that certifications do cost a lot of money and resources to obtain, so if a smaller brand does not have one, it does not automatically mean they are unsustainable. But if it is an established, larger brand claiming to be sustainable without any certifications, I do get sceptical.
5. Evaluate their marketing and social campaigns
How does a brand behave in reality, compared to what they write on their website? Look at their social channels or even subscribe to their mailing list, and see if they behave in ethical ways.
For example, are they pushing sales and consumption all the time, or do they encourage slow consumption and repair? Do they only talk about their products, or do they also highlight their sustainability performance, community projects, and diversity initiatives?
6. Check the news related to the company
A quick search can reveal any controversies the company has been named in, like mass layoffs, labour violations in its overseas factories, or environmental pollution. These shed light on how the company truly behaves, and can be very telling in how ethical they truly are when they are not in control of the narrative.
In some cases, you might also find positive stories like community work or conservation projects.
7. Read their reviews
Quality and longevity are key for truly sustainable products, so checking reviews to see how customers rate these aspects is super helpful.
I like going on Trustpilot and filtering on words I want to check, or searching Reddit for organic, independent discussions. Avoid sponsored content (like from TikTok) as you can’t always trust reviews when people get paid for them.
8. Consider the price
Lastly, though this may not be what you want to hear, price is an important identifier of sustainable products.
While sustainability doesn’t always mean expensive, extremely low prices are only possible through exploitative labour practices or the use of low-quality, environmentally harmful materials. Ethical production requires fair wages, sustainable sourcing, and responsible manufacturing—all of which come at a cost.
If a brand is selling £10 T-shirts while claiming to be ethical, you have to question how that’s possible. The answer is nearly always that they are cutting corners. If a price is too good to be true, it means someone else is paying for it, whether it’s the environment, the workers, or both.
Remember that no brand is perfect, but we should still try to support those who are genuinely making an effort while being honest about their challenges. Also, remember you should prioritise using what you already have and shopping second-hand over finding the perfect sustainable brand.
Conscious consumption might seem overwhelming at first, but by being more intentional with your purchases, you can contribute to creating a better world.
