Sustainable Branding Practices

Would you change what’s on your plate if you knew its carbon footprint? 🌱🌍 Most of us want to make climate-friendly choices, but when it comes to food, the knowledge gap is real. How many people know that producing 1kg of beef emits 60kg of greenhouse gases, while 1kg of peas emits just 1kg? New research propose a simple solution: carbon labels that highlight whether food is animal- or plant-based can significantly shift purchasing decisions toward lower-emission options. In experiments across Australia, the U.S., and the Netherlands, this label design made people more aware of the environmental impact of their choices—and more likely to opt for plant-based meals. 🌱 Why does this matter? Agriculture is responsible for nearly one-third of global emissions By redesigning food labels to connect emissions with their source, we empower people to turn good intentions into impactful #climateaction. Some forward-thinking companies are already testing carbon labels—could this be the next big step in sustainable food systems? read more here 👇 https://lnkd.in/eWDMv4Gi

Sustainability marketing and sustainable marketing are often considered the same thing but they are not. As Paul Randle would often say in our workshops 'Sustainability marketing is dead!'. Sustainability marketing is communicating your company's wider sustainability plans. Sustainable marketing is embedding sustainability into every single aspect of your function from branding and strategy to tactics, governance, and most importantly how you define success. Sustainability marketing is very faddy and sits perfectly with marketing's obsessions with trends. It came in, everyone became obsessed with it and now people are saying does it really matter? Well, I can completely see why. Brands are being pulled across the embers left, right and centre for greenwashing, socialwashing, purposewashing, lacking sincerity, lacking authenticity, lacking integrity, and most importantly not being considered trustworthy. And why is this happening? Firstly you have marketing teams who do not understand sustainability and secondly, you have a marketing function that despite communicating sustainability plans, continues to use business-as-usual (BAU) channels, toolkits, branding strategies, and planning, etc which continues to lead to mass overconsumption, inadequacy marketing, funding of misinformation, ad fraud, driving debt up, driving suicide rates up, complete lack of contextual care when targeting customers, enormous operational carbon footprints and waste streams and a detrimental brainprint (to name but a few). These problems won't go away unless we properly embed sustainable marketing thinking. We need to not only communicate sustainability but we need to act, feel, be, do it as well. Taking this approach has its benefits as well, it will enable brands to: - Stay ahead of the legislation ramping up - Help companies hit their Scope 3 emission reduction targets - Offer a long-term competitive edge - Drive efficiencies up and thus saving costs - Deepen connections with customers I know I live and breathe this space but I really see no other option but to take the sustainable marketing route. It just makes business sense plus you will have a team that is fully engaged because they know they are no longer being part of the problem. #marketing #advertising #sustainabilitymarketing #sustainablemarketing

France just made history—by calling out ultra-fast fashion for what it is: A Planetary Liability. On June 10, 2025, the French Senate approved groundbreaking legislation to curb the environmental and social damage of ultra-fast fashion. It’s bold. It’s overdue. And it should ripple far beyond France’s borders. ⚖️ What does it do? - Introduces a €5–€10 (by 2030) eco-tax per item on ultra-fast fashion --> Stop dumping clothes to fast digital cycles - Bans advertising and influencer promotion of these products --> Stop misleading Tiktokers and Insta Influencers - Mandates eco-score labels to expose product impact --> Stop Green washing - Rewards slower, more circular brands with bonus-malus incentives --> Encourage ecodesign But here’s the real shift: "Ultra-fast fashion" is now defined in law as: 1- High-volume 2- Low-durability 3- Lack of reparability Yes, names like #Shein and #Temu come to mind. This is regulatory foresight in action. A clear message: Speed without responsibility is not innovation—it’s erosion. But the real question is: Is ultra-fast fashion the only threat to circularity and justice in the industry? Because while France steps forward, parts of the EU are debating watering down the Green Claims Directive —and delaying broader legislation that could hold all players accountable for repairability, recyclability, and material stewardship. We need more than tactical wins. We need systems thinking. What other bottlenecks should regulation address? And how do we ensure ambition at the EU level matches the urgency we’re seeing from national leadership? 📷 photo credit Emanuele Morelli #CircularEconomy #TextileRegulation #FastFashion #UltraFastFashion #France #EPR #GreenClaimsDirective #EUtextiles #SustainableFashion #EcoDesign #Legislation #Accountability #PolicyForImpact

The European Parliament has officially passed Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation that fundamentally shifts the responsibility for textile waste management to fashion brands and retailers – with far-reaching global implications. This new law requires all producers, including e-commerce platforms, to cover the full cost of collecting, sorting, and recycling textiles, regardless of whether they are based within or outside the EU. The financial burden of Europe's textile waste now falls squarely on the brands that create it. What are the critical business implications? UNIVERSAL SCOPE: The legislation applies to all producers selling in the EU market, including those of clothing, accessories, footwear, home textiles, and curtains. No company is exempt based on location. FAST FASHION PENALTY: Member states must specifically address ultra-fast and fast fashion practices when determining EPR financial contributions, creating cost penalties for unsustainable business models. GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN DISRUPTION: As the world's largest textile importer, the EU's new rules will ripple across global supply chains, particularly impacting exporters from Bangladesh, Vietnam, China, and India who supply much of Europe's fast fashion. TIMELINE PRESSURE: Officially adopted September 2025, this creates immediate operational and financial planning requirements. COMPETITIVE RESHAPING: Brands and retailers will inevitably pass increased costs down their supply chains, fundamentally altering supplier relationships and pricing structures globally. What are the implications for various stakeholders? For CEOs and board members: This represents more than regulatory compliance – it's a complete business model transformation. Companies must now integrate end-of-life costs into product pricing, rethink supplier partnerships, and accelerate circular design strategies. For sustainability and decarbonisation executives: This creates unprecedented opportunities for circular economy solutions, sustainable material innovation, and traceability system development across global supply chains. Link: https://lnkd.in/dTyHtHuD #sustainablefashion #circulareconomy #textilwaste #epr #fashionindustry #sustainability #supplychainmanagement #fastfashion #environmentalregulation #businessstrategy #decarbonisation #textilerecycling #fashionceos #boardgovernance #climateaction #wastemanagement #producerresponsibility #fashionsustainability #textileindustry #greenbusiness

𝗠𝘆𝘁𝗵 #𝟰 – “𝗦𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹” "We launched a sustainable product, but no one is buying it.” This is one of the most recurring discussions. Let’s unpack this, because in most cases, it’s not the sustainability that’s the problem. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲-𝗢𝗳𝗳 One of the biggest mistakes? Designing a “green” product with the planet in mind… and forgetting the customer. I’m thinking of Nike’s Trash Talk shoe: launched with the best intentions, made entirely from factory waste, a pioneering attempt at circularity. But it flopped. Why? Because, quite frankly, it looked like trash and didn’t perform like a Nike shoe. Fast forward to Nike Flyknit: same ambition, better execution. Engineered from 60% less waste, lightweight, durable, high-performing. It didn’t just meet the bar for a performance shoe, it raised it. And it became one of Nike’s best-selling shoes. 𝙇𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙣? Sustainability is a feature, not an excuse. The best sustainability products elevate the customer experience, they don’t reduce it. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲-𝗢𝗳𝗳 Here’s another hard truth: many sustainable products are simply overpriced. True, oftentimes they are more expensive to produce - but is it really fair to expect the consumer to absorb 𝘢𝘭𝘭 the extra cost? A Kearney study found that most green products are nearly twice (!) the cost of conventional ones. They also found that a simple shift from a relative to a fixed margin pricing could solve the issue. Fair Milk, for example, was introduced so farmers could make a decent living. Instead of applying the typical relative margin across brand owners, wholesalers, and retailers (which would have brought the liter of milk well over €1), they added a fixed 10-cent premium, one that the majority of customers accepted right away. 𝙇𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙣? If you add your sustainability premium to the production cost, all the other profit margins stack up quickly. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲-𝗢𝗳𝗳 And now for the part we don’t talk about enough: sales. Companies have sustainability products in theory, but they never make it into the client conversation. Why? Because your sales team is either not incentivized or not confident enough to sell them. Sometimes it’s structure: bonuses tied to volume, not value. Sometimes it’s discomfort: salespeople feel like they don’t know enough about sustainability to bring it up. And sometimes, they just don’t believe in the story. If your sales team isn’t trained to sell your sustainable offering, they won’t. And that’s not a sales issue, it’s a leadership and communication one. 𝙇𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙣? If sustainability is part of your offer, it needs to be part of your sales muscle. 𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲: If your sustainable product isn’t selling, chances are it’s not the sustainability that’s broken. It’s the pricing. It’s the performance. It’s your internal incentives. Sustainability doesn’t excuse bad business logic, it demands better.

The hottest leather in the fashion industry right now is "Cactus Leather", and here's breaking down what's happening... The fashion industry is one of the largest polluters in the world... the leather industry even more... apart form of course harm to animals. Even most faux leather alternatives are made of plastics, so adverse environmental impact remains. To solve for this, a company in Mexico called Desserto identified what is abundantly present in their country, barely uses any water or pesticides, and is so tough, it can be processed into leather that might easily last a decade. Cactus leaves are dried, powdered, made into a paste, baked, and then stuck over a fabric to give it the feel and texture that is undifferentiated from real leather. In fact, Fossil, H&M, Karl Lagerfeld, Adidas have been using this as a vegan leather alternative. But since Desserto is almost a monopoly in the world right now, just the raw material sells for 3X the price in India because 2X the cost for international shipments, and then add custom duty to it. You'd probably procure it for about Rs 5000 per metre in India, compared to other leather, which could be Rs 500 per metre. Now, you can make similar vegan leather using mangoes, pineapple and even coconut. A company called Malai from Kerala has built an entire brand around coconut leather, but in what I've seen, it doesn't really look and feel like real leather... but I could barely tell the difference between cactus and real. I’m sure Desserto would have some parents on the process, but it’s nothing that an Indian company cannot reverse engineer with some changes to not flout any IPs and still be able to produce an Indian variant of it. This is especially when Cactus is considered to be "Green Gold" even by the Indian govt which is pushing farmers to grow it in Bhuj and other arid regions because it's used as animal fodder in desert areas, and also to make plywood. What kind of vegan leathers are you using? #casarthakahuja #leather #fashion #cactus #industry #business

Patagonia has finally admitted they do greenwhashing. Yesterday, Patagonia published its first-ever environmental report — and it starts with a disarming sentence: “Nothing we do is sustainable.” As The Business of Fashion notes, the report is both a scorecard and a confession. Despite its decades of activism, Patagonia admits it cannot fully control its factories, supply chains, or the lifetime of its products. It has fought oil pipelines, yet a lot of its garments still rely on fossil-based materials. It promotes repair and resale, yet less than 1% of its products ever return for recycling. Why is Patagonia not sustainable? Because it: 1) does not own its factories and cannot control energy sources or working methods, 2) cannot fully oversee global supply chains, 3) has historically used harmful chemicals, 4) despite powerful ads "Don't buy this jacket", it cannot control consumer behaviour, including demand for merchandise that often becomes waste - and that they've produced historically. These structural limits mirror the findings of our study: even well-intentioned brands face systemic barriers — and often fall silent about the most difficult issues, especially overproduction. This paradox is precisely what we examined in our recent paper: Hejlová, D., Ariestya, A., Koudelková, P., & Schneiderová, S. (2025). Strategic silence in corporate communication concerning deadstock and overstock in the fashion industry. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 30(2), 294–312. https://lnkd.in/eXN489ya https://lnkd.in/eAi43tvH Patagonia’s statement is not simply an honest admission — it is an overdue acknowledgment that the brand has long presented a more sustainable image than its operations could truly support, a pattern our research identifies across the industry.

Types of Greenwashing 🌎 Greenwashing is not a single tactic but a spectrum of actions that mislead stakeholders on sustainability performance. Recognizing the differences helps separate credible strategies from superficial claims. Green-crowding occurs when companies hide in collective initiatives. Industry groups move at the pace of their slowest member, commitments lack accountability, and action is deferred until regulations force change. Green-lighting highlights small positives to overshadow larger negatives. A company may promote one eco-friendly product line while its core business continues to pollute, or publicize donations while expanding harmful activities. Green-shifting transfers responsibility to others instead of fixing internal operations. Marketing campaigns point at consumer behavior or supply chains, shifting the carbon burden away from the company itself. Green-labelling uses misleading words, images, or badges. Terms such as “eco” or “natural” appear without standards, packaging uses green visuals to suggest sustainability, and certifications lack credible verification. Green-rinsing manipulates targets before results can be measured. Climate pledges are updated with new baselines, near-term milestones disappear, and reports are reset to make progress appear stronger than it is. Green-hushing conceals or downplays sustainability information. Companies avoid disclosing targets, keep impact data internal, and underreport achievements to reduce external scrutiny. Each of these tactics represents a different way of distorting sustainability communication. Some emphasize positives, others delay accountability, while others avoid transparency altogether. The diversity of tactics shows that greenwashing is not always obvious. It can be embedded in industry pledges, product claims, marketing strategies, or reporting practices. Stakeholders need to understand these patterns to evaluate whether sustainability actions are credible or designed to mislead. Labels, commitments, and reports require scrutiny beyond surface-level messaging. Regulators are increasingly addressing these practices. From disclosure standards to advertising rules, frameworks are evolving to close gaps that enable greenwashing. For companies, credibility will depend on transparent reporting, measurable progress, and alignment between claims and actual performance. Anything less risks falling into one of these six categories. #sustainability #business #sustainable #esg #greenwashing

🚨 THE CLIMATE WIN YOU PROBABLY MISSED 🚨 The French Senate has passed groundbreaking legislation taking direct aim at ultra-fast fashion. Targeting brands like SHEIN and Temu, this law challenges an industry built on overproduction, waste and exploitation. As I shared at The Business of Fashion last year, it would take decades to recycle what fast fashion brands produce in a matter of days. And there is already enough clothing on the planet for the next 6 generations of humans. This is why this legislation is more important than ever. Here’s what’s coming: 💵 Eco-tax: starting this year, each ultra-fast fashion item will carry a €5 environmental surcharge; doubling to €10 by 2030. 🚫 Ad ban: all advertising for ultra-fast fashion will be prohibited, unless it's promoting circular or sustainable models. ⚖️ Influencer accountability: fines for influencers who promote unsustainable fashion brands. 🔍 Transparency mandate: brands must display an “eco-score” on every item sold, covering carbon footprint, resource use, recyclability, and more. ♻️ Funding the future: eco-tax revenue will be funnelled into France’s sustainable fashion sector, rewarding brands that embrace circular models. Now, there has been valid criticism that the bill doesn't go far enough — major European retailers such as Zara and H&M are exempt from everything but environmental reporting. However, this is still a critical step in the process; especially for an industry that has largely evaded accountability. We must build on this momentum, and expand the legislation to encompass ALL fast fashion producers. Kudos to the incredible organisations and campaigners who have paved the way to this moment: Fashion Revolution, Fashion for Good, Global Fashion Agenda and many others. . . . . . #climatecrisis #climatechange #sustainability #fashion #sustainablefashion #climateaction #fastfashion #shein #temu #France #regulation #CircularEconomy

As International Women’s Day nears, we’ll see the usual corporate gestures—empowerment panels, social media campaigns, and carefully curated success stories. But let’s be honest: these feel-good initiatives rarely change what actually holds women back at work on the daily basis. Instead, I suggest focusing on something concrete, something I’ve seen have the biggest impact in my work with teams: the unspoken dynamics that shape psychological safety. 🚨Because psychological safety is not the same for everyone. Psychological safety is often defined as a shared belief that one can take risks without fear of negative consequences. But let’s unpack that—who actually feels safe enough to take those risks? 🔹 Speaking up costs more for women Confidence isn’t the issue—consequences are. Women learn early that being too direct can backfire. Assertiveness can be read as aggression, while careful phrasing can make them seem uncertain. Over time, this calculation becomes second nature: Is this worth the risk? 🔹 Mistakes are stickier When men fail, it’s seen as part of leadership growth. When women fail, it often reinforces lingering doubts about their competence. This means that women aren’t more risk-averse by nature—they’re just more aware of the cost. 🔹 Inclusion isn’t just about presence Being at the table doesn’t mean having an equal voice. Women often find themselves in a credibility loop—having to repeatedly prove their expertise before their ideas carry weight. Meanwhile, those who fit the traditional leadership mold are often trusted by default. 🔹 Emotional labor is the silent career detour Women in teams do an extraordinary amount of behind-the-scenes work—mediating conflicts, softening feedback, ensuring inclusion. The problem? This work isn’t visible in performance reviews or leadership selection criteria. It’s expected, but not rewarded. What companies can do beyond IWD symbolism: ✅ Stop measuring "confidence"—start measuring credibility gaps If some team members always need to “prove it” while others are trusted instantly, you have a credibility gap, not a confidence issue. Fix how ideas get heard, not how women present them. ✅ Make failure a learning moment for everyone Audit how mistakes are handled in your team. Are men encouraged to take bold moves while women are advised to be more careful? Change the narrative around risk. ✅ Track & reward emotional labor If women are consistently mentoring, resolving conflicts, or ensuring inclusion, this isn’t just “being helpful”—it’s leadership. Make it visible, valued, and part of promotion criteria. 💥 This IWD, let’s skip the celebration and start the correction. If your company is serious about making psychological safety equal for everyone, let’s do the real work. 📅 I’m now booking IWD sessions focused on improving team dynamics and creating workplaces where women don’t just survive, but thrive. Book your spot and let’s turn good intentions into lasting impact.