Fashion retailer H&M has been facing a lawsuit accusing the company of misleading consumers with false sustainability claims. The proposed class-action complaint alleges that H&M’s advertising is “designed to mislead” customers into believing that its Conscious Choice products are environmentally friendly and sustainable.
The lawsuit was initiated by Chelsea Commodore, a marketing student at SUNY New Paltz, who claimed she had overpaid for a fashion piece marketed as “conscious” but was not actually sustainable. The allegations against H&M were further supported by an investigation published in Quartz on June 28, 2022, which was alleged to reveal that H&M’s environmental scorecards for its clothing were misleading and, in some cases, outright deceptive.
According to the complaint, H&M‘s claims that its products are a “Conscious Choice,” more “sustainable,” and environmentally friendly are false, misleading, and deceptive because they are not made from sustainable and environment-friendly materials that are less harmful and more…
beneficial to the environment. Furthermore, the lawsuit alleged that H&M’s recycling program claims to prevent clothes from going to landfill are also misleading, as recycling options are not commercially available on a large enough scale. In fact, it would take H&M more than a decade to recycle what it sells in just a few days.
In response to the accusations of greenwashing, H&M had pledged to accelerate its efforts and become fully transparent about its environmental impact by 2023. This includes publishing a list of suppliers and disclosing the environmental impact of each product and other relevant data.
H&M was found not guilty of violating antitrust laws, H&M will not face any significant penalties. Individual violators can be fined up to $1 million and sentenced to up to 10 years in federal prison for each offense, while corporations can be fined up to $100 million for each offense.
In some circumstances, the maximum fines can go even higher than the Sherman Act maximums to twice the gain or loss involved. The lawsuit against H&M serves as a reminder for companies to ensure that their sustainability claims are backed by solid evidence and that the language they use is…
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