The Brief: How bad is ‘greenwashing’ in fast fashion packaging?

In a rush? Click here to read a short summary of this story

Fast fashion’s environmental footprint isn’t limited to textiles; its packaging is under growing scrutiny, too. This report explores how fashion brands are responding to pressure over packaging waste, the credibility of their sustainability claims, and the role legislation is beginning to play in shaping accountability.

• Greenwashing is widespread: Brands like H&M, ASOS, and SHEIN face accusations of misleading sustainability claims, especially around packaging and recycled content.
• New laws aim to raise the bar: The EU is rolling out regulations to standardize packaging labels, mandate recycled content, and ban vague or unverifiable eco-claims.
• Packaging-to-clothing isn’t a solution: Turning plastic waste into garments is often downcycling, not recycling. This contributes to landfill, microplastic pollution, and misleading green credentials.
• Packaging is still largely single-use: Despite innovation, 180 billion polybags are used by the fashion industry each year, and most of them go unrecycled.
• Some brands are experimenting: Rental schemes, reusable mailers, and paperless returns are gaining traction, but implementation is patchy and often small-scale.
• Design tricks mislead consumers: Green-coloured paper, fake eco logos, and contradictory on-pack messages are common; these can influence purchasing decisions without real impact.

Fashion brands are feeling the heat on packaging, but progress is uneven and trust is fragile. Stricter regulations and more transparent reporting are pushing the industry toward genuine accountability. The next few years will test whether sustainable packaging can move beyond marketing and deliver meaningful environmental change.

Fast fashion often comes under fire for promoting the overconsumption of clothing, but where does its packaging come in? What are big brands doing to overcome packaging waste, how reliable are their claims, and what can we expect in the future? We cover it all in this edition of The Brief.  

What is a sustainability claim? 

Writing for the Global Legal Post, Castrén & Snellman attorney Hilma-Karoliina Markkanen notes the increase in claims to recyclability, biodegradability, and renewable contents in fashion packaging and products – not just written or verbal claims, but symbols and graphics.  

Generally, she says, the world of marketing considers claims of sustainability and environmental friendliness to be factual. Those making them should cover the entire life cycle of the product in question and be able to support their views with the appropriate data, verified by a third party if necessary. 

Claims should be ‘relevant, up-to-date, and specific’, accompanied by clear explanations that consumers can understand. Exploiting their environmental concerns and/or lack of expertise on the subject, alongside misleading marketing and general or vague statements, are discouraged.  

Legal action has taken place where these guidelines have (allegedly) been violated. In the USA, H&M is involved in a lawsuit for its Conscious Choice line, accused of overstating its positive environmental impact and violating the Federal Trade Commission’s guidance with descriptors like “conscious” and “sustainable”. ASOS, Boohoo, and George at Asda have just signed formal agreements to avoid misleading sustainability claims after an investigation by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority. 

In the world of fashion itself, Markkanen points out, the European Union is on its way to proposing new legislation expanding upon the Circular Economy Action Plan in line with the European Green Deal. It expects to prevent misleading claims and practices by holding companies to the EU Product and Organization Environmental Footprint methods of environmental impact assessment. 

More specific to our focus is the development of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. Article 11 dictates that, within three years and six months of its entry into force, packaging – including e-commerce packaging – must feature a label conveying information about its material composition. This includes recycled content, which is mandated for plastic packaging by 2030 at the earliest; and, for reusable options, a QR code or other type of digital code carrier within four years of entry into force.  

Eighteen months in, the Commission will adopt implementing acts laying out harmonized labelling requirements; and, twenty-four months in, it will do the same for a methodology identifying a pack’s material composition with digital marking technologies. The Regulation suggests that harmonizing on-pack symbols will ensure that consumers fully understand where and how to dispose of their waste.  

While these measures cover end-of-life treatment, they do not prevent misleading marketing practices, for which packaging can become a vessel. Publishing under the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, India policy fellow Kamya Choudhary pointed out how ‘made-up eco logos’ and the use of such materials as green or brown paper can hint at sustainability benefits that may not apply to the product itself – and when nearly two-thirds of consumers said in a Drapers report that they were more likely to spend money on a fashion brand or retailer if they thought its packaging was sustainable, some would consider moves like these to be greenwashing tactics. 

In Europe, MEPs have begun to crack down on these issues. A directive adopted in January will only accept sustainability labels established by local authorities or complying with official certification schemes. Emissions offsetting schemes will not count towards claims of neutral, reduced, or positive environmental impact, and unsubstantiated, generic claims like “eco”, “natural”, “environmentally friendly”, “climate neutral”, and “biodegradable” will be prohibited. After final approval from the European Council, Member States will have two years to integrate these rules into national law.  

Even these rules are not all-encompassing, though. Some features, like graphic design and colour, contribute to misdirection but are harder to restrict. Moreover, packaging and products often overlap in so-called ‘greenwashing’ practices, sometimes in a literal sense. 

The pack-to-clothes pipeline 

Converting packaging waste into clothing is frowned upon in many circles. As outlined by City to Sea, the practice breaks material loops, condemns the resultant garment to landfill, incineration, or nature at end-of-life, and does nothing to prevent microplastics from leaking into the environment. Moreover, the organization posits that the “token use of recycled synthetics […] distracts consumers from the deeper problem of fashion brands’ entrenched reliance on fossil fuels” instead of finding alternative solutions. 

Environmental writer Wendy Graham tells Moral Fibres that the plastic bottles recycled into clothes are often made from PET, which can remain in recycling loops for considerable amounts of time, but cannot be recycled again if it is turned into clothing. As such, many consider the process a form of ‘downcycling’. 

Add overconsumption and fast fashion trends into the mix and these garments are worn briefly, then passed on to secondhand sellers like charity shops. In theory, these sellers should keep the clothes in circulation; in practice, they become overrun and export their surplus to developing countries. There the garments may be sold on at markets, but are otherwise cut into rags or thrown into landfill.  

Greenwash, an online archive of false or exaggerated sustainability claims made by big brands, points a finger at SHEIN for replacing virgin polyester with a recycled alternative derived from plastic waste, largely bottles – a move it describes as a ‘false solution’ and ‘major greenwashing tactic’. This refers to the evoluSHEIN line, which claims to clean, shred, melt, and spin plastic bottles into polyester fibre, and thus cut down on source materials, as well as the water and energy required to produce the garments. 

SHEIN went on to claim that both the clothes and their packaging were produced with suppliers certified to the Global Recycled Standard (GRS), and each pack could reportedly be recycled at end-of-life. Even so, the company is said to offer 6,000 new items up for sale every day, not all of which are part of the evoluSHEIN range – and Contemporary Fashion questions the longevity of mass-producing garments from recycled materials in the first place, given the retailer’s immense popularity. 

Graham adds that washing synthetic clothing materials, even if they are recycled, releases microplastics into the natural environment. These leach into the earth, the ocean, and waterways – then enter the human body, having been found in human faeces and blood. 

These concerns assume that dishonest marketing is not at play. In one instance, Greenwash accuses various products from PrettyLittleThing of misleading consumers. One coat claimed to contain yarn from plastic bottles, yet was listed as 100% polyester in its fabric description – nor did it indicate an exact volume of recycled content in the product. 

Although it is no longer accessible on the retailer’s website, PrettyLittleThing previously released a clothing line known as ‘Recycled by PrettyLittleThing’. In its coverage of the range, Glamour explained that it consisted of ‘wardrobe staple pieces’ that repurposed such end-of-life materials as plastic bottles.  

Yet blogger Izzy McLeod further expressed her skepticism about the true sustainability of the Recycled by PLT garments given their low price, combined with a lack of clarity regarding the manufacturing process and the supply chain as a whole – and, much like the discussion surrounding evoluSHEIN, the diminutive size of the range compared to PrettyLittleThing’s mass production. 

Not everybody in the packaging industry is against the practice. Injection and blow moulding company Plastic Bubbles expressed in a LinkedIn post last year that “we support the repurposing of plastic waste into fashion garments and accessories, and believe it is an excellent reason to recycle plastic, reuse it, and avoid it from going into landfills and into our oceans”. In its view, the solution cuts down on the fashion industry’s carbon footprint and tackles plastic pollution head-on; and it points to discussions of collaborative efforts to close the loop on the process. 

Graham concedes that, in certain contexts, clothing made from recycled plastic can be environmentally beneficial. Swimwear, for example, cannot be produced from 100% natural fabrics without sacrificing their desired qualities – yet recycled options are often made from ECONYL, or nylon waste from discarded fishing nets and carpet offcuts, rather than plastic packaging. 

Still, the fast fashion business model shows no signs of slowing. Clothing ‘hauls’, in which social media users bulk-order clothing to unpack on camera – as well as ‘wardrobing’, or using a purchased garment for a short time before returning it under false claims for a full refund – maintain the constant demand for fashion products.  

Returning them to warehouses requires the retailers to unwrap and repack the product to be resold, thus generating additional packaging waste, and CleanHub calculates that online shopping requires 4.8 times more packaging than brick-and-mortar shops. The likelihood that, if the product is ordered and returned, it will struggle in resale and end up in an open-air dumping site or landfill only adds to the environmental damage. 

Whether they are well-intentioned but misinformed, or cutting corners to appease consumer demand for more sustainable practices, fashion brands continue to utilize packaging in their products, if only some of them. But what about the packaging these companies’ garments arrive in? Let’s take a look at some examples. 

Packaging in practice 

In 2022, a Changing Markets Foundation report alleged that clothing brand SKIMS was among several companies making ‘misleading and mendacious’ sustainability claims about its packaging. Bold printed text declared that the pack was ‘not plastic’, but ‘a compostable bag made from plants’ that would ‘biodegrade in your home compost and in an industrial compost facility’. Even so, it also displayed a type four recycling logo – which, while it does not inherently rule out its compostability, defines the material as low-density polyethylene and therefore a plastic.  

Also in the biodegradability vein is the online-only fashion retailer Cider, which has embraced Symphony Environmental’s controversial oxo-biodegradable plastics for its product deliveries. These are conventional plastics containing a pro-oxidant additive reported to speed up the decomposition process and eliminate microplastics – yet their true efficacy has come into question, and the Court of Justice of the European Union has dismissed Symphony Environmental’s lawsuit against the prohibition of oxo-degradable materials on the European market. 

Nevertheless, other brands position themselves more proactively in the handling of their packaging. Forever 21 states that ‘many of its stores’ package products in ‘100% recyclable and reusable’ plastic and paper bags, and that it recycles shipment boxes at its stores and distribution centres every day. Among other claims, Urban Outfitters says it is partnering with Polyloop to pilot closed-loop plastic recycling at its distribution centres, where it also utilizes auto-bagging machinery with mailers made from a minimum of 80% recycled materials. 

Boohoo Group – the parent company of brands like Boohoo, PrettyLittleThing, and Nasty Gal – stated in 2023 that all its customer garment packaging would be reusable, recyclable, or compostable within the year, while any remaining plastic would contain over 50% recycled content. Regarding its labels, it reportedly utilized smaller swing tickets made from 100% recycled card and free of non-recyclable finishes; its care labels were apparently made from 100% recycled polyester. It also claimed to have set ‘consistent standards’ across its brands by providing labelling supplier options for its garment suppliers to consult, alongside labelling and supplier manuals. 

Examples of such claims continue, but single-use packaging is still a problem for the sector. WWF cites figures that 180 billion polybags are used by the global fashion industry every year, yet less than 15% of them are recycled. While packaging of this kind is important to protect products against dirt, dust, and moisture in transit, leading 83% of participants in the ‘Reducing Plastic In Fashion’ Virtual Roundtable to name polybags as the most difficult packaging to reduce in their supply chains, they are generating vast amounts of waste in their current forms. 

In one solution, companies are starting to offer rental services for clothing. Developments like these are usually trying to cut down on textile waste, but they often come hand-in-hand with packaging reduction efforts. 

For instance, Rent the Runway allows consumers to borrow clothing from Gucci, Balenciaga, and other designer brands. Between one, two, and four shipments arrive every month, usually in reusable garment bags from Returnity; some still come in polybags or cardboard boxes. To return the clothes, consumers must put rentals back in their packaging and replace the shipping label with a prepaid return label. The packs can then be returned to the nearest UPS location or collected from consumers’ doorsteps – in either case, the packaging is said to be reused in future deliveries or recycled. 

While the carbon efficiency of this process comes into question – Julia L Freer Goldstein and Paul Foulkes-Arellano gesture towards this concern in their new book, Materials & Sustainability: Building A Circular Future – it theoretically reduces the amount of single-use packaging in circulation. Big brands are also jumping on the bandwagon and implementing their own rental services, including H&M. 

Not all waste reduction solutions are quite so radical, or even focused on plastics. In the UK, PrettyLittleThing has transitioned into paperless returns. Consumers no longer receive paper invoices in their packaging; instead, they are encouraged to visit a dedicated returns page, where they can insert their order number and follow instructions to send their product back.  

From here, they will be emailed a shipping label or QR code to be scanned at the drop-off point – these can be printed at home or at the drop-off point itself. Options are available to mail returns through InPost, Royal Mail, Evri, or Asda – and, on its blog page titled ‘Easy Ways to Be More Sustainable’, the brand encourages consumers to post their products in their original packaging. 

The list of examples could continue, but most of these solutions are fairly new. Further insights into their effectiveness will come with time, and will of course depend on consumer engagement. Still, buyers are voicing their desire for environmentally-motivated changes; sellers are experimenting with new ways to deliver, to varying degrees of success; and, with drastic shifts in packaging legislation on their way, the industry is bound to keep evolving. 

If you liked this story, you might also enjoy:

The Brief: How viable is biorecycling for plastics?

Report: How the top brands are progressing on packaging sustainability

The Brief: Using ocean-bound plastic in packaging – how, why and should we?

Sustainable Packaging Summit: Is the world on track to tackle plastic pollution? Reflecting on five years of the Global Commitment