Sustainability is moving from words to deeds – for brands, it’s goodbye to slogans

Are we a paradox? A few months ago, thousands of Patagonia customers received a company email with this question in the subject line. It was sent by the outdoor clothing brand, which has always been mindful of its environmental impact. The text below was even more explicit. ‘We exist to save our planet, but our products harm it.’

With these words, the brand that has been an icon for generations of sports enthusiasts has launched its new sustainability report, which, right from its title, breaks with its predecessors and becomes (once again) one of a kind. This is the first ‘Work in Progress’ report, and its very title contains a statement of method, as it is described as an experiment in doing business, measuring progress, mistakes and problems that remain unresolved. Patagonia acknowledges that 85 per cent of its products do not yet have an end-of-life solution. Alongside its achievements, it deliberately acknowledges its shortcomings. Even the charismatic, almost 90-year-old founder, Yvon Chouinard, maintains that, despite the work and resources invested, what has been done is not enough. ‘Our first Work in Progress report tells the truth about where we’re going wrong. We’re not perfect, as this report demonstrates,’ stated Corley Kenna, Patagonia’s Chief Impact and Communications Officer, in no uncertain terms. A culture of data is preferred to the rhetoric of perfection. It marks an epoch-making shift in the narrative surrounding sustainability: today, credibility no longer stems from hiding imperfections, but from documenting them.

Welcome to the era of the ‘substantiation economy’, which literally means backing up claims with verifiable evidence. Indeed, 27 September marked a watershed in the transition from promise to proof, with the full implementation of the provisions of European Directive 2024/825 on ‘Empowering consumers for the green transition’, which has amended the rules on unfair commercial practices and tightened the conditions for making environmental claims. Many brands still talk about sustainability today using terms such as ‘green’, ‘eco-friendly’, ‘climate neutral’ or ‘zero impact’. From now on, all of them will need solid scientific evidence. But this paradigm shift risks rendering a significant portion of the environmental communication built up over recent years obsolete.

According to the European Commission, 53 per cent of the environmental claims examined contain vague, misleading or unfounded information, and 40 per cent lack adequate evidence to support them. The proliferation of labels also highlights the confusion that has arisen: there are around 230 sustainability labels and around a hundred green energy labels in circulation across Europe, with widely varying levels of transparency and verification. Meanwhile, in England, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has used automated systems to scrutinise millions of online adverts published in recent months.

As many as 61,000 contained environmental claims using those generic phrases that are now being challenged. Last year, the ASA censured a Nike campaign on Google that used the phrase ‘sustainable materials’ because it was unclear in relation to the product’s entire life cycle. The aviation sector has become the most advanced testing ground for this new discipline of language. Lufthansa was reprimanded for its ‘Fly more sustainably’ claim, Air France for encouraging customers to travel ‘sustainably’, and two months ago the ASA also took issue with Eurowings for offering passengers the option to fully offset the emissions of a specific flight without providing sufficiently robust evidence. In short, the bigger the promise, the stronger the evidence must be.