Greenwashing

Greenwashing got its name in 1986, coined to describe hotels asking guests to reuse towels for "the environment" while mostly just cutting laundry costs. In custom apparel, it looks like a hangtag or product description claiming "eco-friendly ink" or "sustainable blank" with nothing specific behind it — no percentage, no certifying body, no test report a buyer could look up. Compare that to a claim tied to an actual audited standard: GOTS organic content, GRS recycled percentage, Oeko-Tex Standard 100 chemical safety, Fair Trade Certified labor conditions — each names a specific, checkable thing.

A client once asked us to print "eco-friendly" on a tag for a shirt with no sustainability claim behind it beyond the phrase itself. We pushed back, and it became "made with 50% recycled polyester, GRS certified" instead — a claim that's actually defensible if anyone asks.

Teach buyers to ask three questions of any claim that might be greenwashing: what percentage, what standard, whose certificate number. If a claim can't answer those, it's marketing copy, not a spec, and shouldn't be presented as one on a product page.

Buyers assume sustainability language on a product page has already been vetted the way a nutrition label has. It hasn't — apparel environmental claims are largely self-policed in practice, and the burden sits on the buyer, or the shop advising them, to ask for the certificate rather than assume the claim already cleared a bar.