Greenwashing

A topic that was raised by all of the interviewees in regard to sustainability in the fashion industry was the phenomena of greenwashing, thus the act of making something appear as sustainable on false or misleading advertising, for instance (CSR.dk, 2019). Greenwashing was mentioned by three out of the four interviewees in regard to the Digital Collection. All these interviewees expressed their skepticism concerning the sustainability aspect of digital clothing. One interviewee questioned whether or not the collection was just a marketing activity to raise awareness for the brand behind it. While two others expressed disagreeing with digital fashion’s sustainability as according to these interviewees the collection would only add on to the fashion sustainability related issues created by social media. The fourth interviewee and creator of the Digital Collection, Morten, also admitted that the

fundamental purpose of the collection was first and foremost to drive traffic to the client company’s web shop, as he said: “The whole idea was, of course, because we couldn't move people from the Internet into their web shop, no matter the products because they have the same products as everybody else. So the idea was to kind of like create another web shop that only contain digital fashion. And because there's so much media around it and people wanted to check it out, they also got aware that they now have like a physical shop as well.

So there was like this kind of like Trojan horse into their physical web shop.”

In addition to the Digital Collection, interviewees discussed other sustainability initiatives in fashion and related them to greenwashing. Especially green and sustainable collections or lines by fast fashion companies were especially mentioned in regard to this. What one of the interviewees mentioned, was the sustainable collections being an “add-on”, something trendy that companies are doing in order to satisfy current demands of consumers. The issue with this type of sustainability initiative according to the interviewee was the

superficiality of it, as she self-explained: “If you as H&M say okay we have already hundred percent production within this and this and this, like, area. And then they say okay now we want to be more sustainable but instead of saying we take 10% out of this. And, like, put 10% on rental, we say no we have hundred and plus 10% in. Again, that's not sustainable.

That's just an add up, like okay, how can we make more money but we don't want to lose all the profit we have over here. We like just add 10% more, that's not sustainable. Then they should have taken something out and said okay we do rental instead.” In other words, the interviewee suggested that these types of initiatives stay to a large extent on a superficial level, and thus do not require fundamental changes from the companies in order to become more sustainable.

In addition to being an “add-on”, some of the sustainability initiatives were claimed to be greenwashing and misleading, such as the use of greener and more sustainable fabrics and textiles. In this context, Kim Felecia explained that consumers are aware of companies such as H&M having a conscious collection with clothes made out of better cotton or organic cotton, but what the consumers are most likely not aware of, is that these fabrics have existed on the market for several decades. In this sense, companies can be argued to take advantage of the lack of knowledge of consumers, by promoting the implementation of the more sustainable textiles as a new initiative, and hence selling the consumers the

“sustainability story”. One of the interviewed gave an example of the phenomena by elaborating on the case of ecological cotton by saying that: “(...) ecological cotton but it's like really old, I think it's been existing since 1989. And then you can also ask yourself questions that how sustainable it is when for example Best Seller, they announced 2018 in the December, that they want to, like, change their cotton like to 30% ecological cotton in

their whole collections. And which is of course it's better than nothing, but since it's been possible to produce ecological cotton and since 1989”.

Morten also gave an example of the way in which companies are making use of the fact that sustainability is a trend among consumers, but also that they lack some knowledge by explaining: “A great example is always when you like see something being better produced like for instance a pair of jeans. Now use 10,000 liters less of water compared to the previous model and you're a little bit at as consumer you're pretty confused around what is it that you're actually, is it good, is it bad, can it maybe become better and everything”. This statement confirms the previous argument of Kim Felecia, and thus highlights the current trend among fashion companies in regard to using sustainability as a marketing or

promoting tool.

All of the interviewees also agreed upon the power of sustainability as a useful means of

“storytelling” as it is a trendy topic among consumers. Morten elaborated on this by explaining the idea behind the Digital Collection, and the promoting of it: “And so basically when you have such an idea (Digital Collection) you know that this is something that can be a new story, something that will travel in media”. Furthermore, he explained sustainability being a popular topic, and means of storytelling, among his clients generally at the moment by saying: “we work a lot on what is a great story in terms of sustainability, with our clients to make sure they understand what I've seen matters to the consumer”.

On this note, according to interviewees sustainability is to a large extent used for creating attention and awareness around brands, more than it is used to actually create change within the fashion industry. Strong arguments to support this were provided by the two experts working within advertising and digital marketing, who both agreed on sustainability being an efficient tool for creating attention and acknowledge the use of this tool within their industry. As Rasmus explained: “CSR was very popular among big companies,

especially for internal or big external communication. You can say that purpose or making a change or whatever but stuff like that has become hugely important to brands, but primarily to get attention from consumers to create that bigger lash.”